Hall of Fame

Johannah is widely credited with creating the adult colouring book category, which has become a global phenomenon since the release of Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Colouring Book back in 2013.

Just two years later it had sold 10 million copies and had been published in 40 territories.

She’s since achieved repeated and consistent success with more books and her personal story is one of single mindedness and determination. Working from her home studio in her native Aberdeenshire, she didn’t feel she needed to move to a big UK city.

The books have been noted for their therapeutic properties and effect on mindfulness. Her pioneering spirit has taken her illustrations to a cultish level, with fans even turning her designs into tattoos.  

She is Johanna Basford.

When he lead the team that created GOV.UK in 2012 it proved to be a landmark project for Government Digital Service.

The site re-rooted and rethought confusing, disjointed Government websites in one place, not only making it easier for people to find services they needed but also saving £61.5 million of taxpayers’ money in 2015.

The GDS project was delivered just a year after the department was set up in 2011, and he had joined from the outset. 

Today he is group design director at the Co-op group where he is looking to drive a similar systemic change and prepare the company for a digital age where business is done differently and communities are increasingly connected. 

He is… Ben Terrett.

The current director of the Design Museum and one of the people who has helped spearhead the museum’s move from it’s current Shad Thames location in June and relocate to the former Commonwealth Institute in November. 

Sudjic is also a writer and broadcaster who has worked as design and architecture critic for The Observer, as the Dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Kingston University and has been a visiting professor of The Royal College of Art. 

In 1983 he co-founded the architecture magazine Blueprint, where he was also editor and editorial director. 

More recently he was director of Glasgow’s UK City of Architecture and Design program in 1999 and the director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2002. He was a juror for the London Aquatics Centre designed and built for the 2012 Olympics by architect Zaha Hadid, the same year he was awarded an honorary degree from the University for the Creative Arts. 

He has written many books on design and architecture, the latest of which are B is for Bahaus (2014) and Ettore Sottsass and the Poetry of Things (2015).

Starting out as a designer Dids Macdonald ran her own interior design company Holbein before becoming a designer-maker.

She founded ACID (Anti Copying in Design) in 1996 as she was consistently finding her products were being copied.

What started as a round table action group, grew to become a not for profit organisation representing thousands of designers in the creative industries.

She lectures widely on IP issues concentrating on lone, micro and SME’s both nationally and internationally.

In the wake of the Hargreaves Review on IP in 2010 ACID lobbied for SME's, parity of design right with copyright and trade marks, higher exemplary damages and the need for a fast track small claims court for IP infringements.

Since then Government has recommended various IP and design reforms many of which ACID has campaigned for.

In June 2015 Dids was included in Her Majesty’s Birthday Honours as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Over the last three decades, Neville Brody has established himself as one of the most prolific, innovative and influential designers working in the world. He has consistently produced inspirational work that pushes visual boundaries, breaks new creative ground and is admired by a diverse international audience.

A renowned typographer, art director and brand strategist, Brody is a hands-on practitioner working with a diverse roster of clients from global Corporations to local businesses. Alongside his studio work as CEO and Founding Associate of his practice, Brody Associates, he is also a passionate voice in the design community, an educator (Dean of the School of Communications – Royal College of Art) and a spokesman for counter culture in the creative industries.

Internationally acclaimed designers Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby founded their London-based studio in 1996. Their diverse body of work spans industrial design, furniture and site-specific installations as well as limited edition pieces. Public commissions include the London 2012 Olympic Torch and projects for the Royal Mint. They are currently working with leading global manufacturers Knoll, Vitra, B&B Italia, Cappellini, Venini, and Flos. Their work is held in permanent museum collections around the world at the V&A and Design Museum in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Art Institute of Chicago. In 2001 Barber & Osgerby established architecture and interior design practice Universal Design Studio, and in 2012 they founded Map, specialising in research and strategy-led design. In 2007 they were awarded Royal Designers for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts and in 2013 the designers were each awarded an OBE for their services to the design industry.

Best known for her work with Jock Kinneir, on the design of Britain's road signs. More recent projects include advising the UK government on the design of their website, and A2 on their lettering for Moscow's Metro, having just completed a digital font, with Henrik Kubel, of Transport lettering, designed in the Sixties. (Now adopted as the official face for Gov.uk). She has had a long association with the Royal College of Art, having taught there part-time from 1966 to 2001. A member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a Royal Designer for Industry.

Dinah Casson set up her design practice in 1970 and her partnership with Roger Mann in 1984. Since 1992, Casson Mann has focused most of its work on the design of museums and exhibitions. These have ranged from the object-based British Galleries at the V&A and the Great North Museum in Newcastle, through to the highly technological Churchill Museum in the Cabinet War Rooms. Recent projects include the Nelson Navy Nation gallery at the National Maritime Museum, and the First World War gallery at the Imperial War Museum.  During the last 6 years, the practice has designed projects in the UK, US, Russia, Italy and in France where two new museum projects will open next year. Casson Mann’s work has been published extensively and has won numerous awards.

Dinah Casson is a trustee of The Charleston Trust, the Towner Gallery and of the UK Supreme Court Arts Trust. She was a Trustee of the Creative Education Trust from its foundation in 2006 until 2015. She is also a member of the Stamp Advisory Committee for Royal Mail. With Roger Mann, she was elected to the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry in 2006 of which she was Master from 2011-2013. Since the 1970s, she has been almost constantly involved with design education as a lecturer or examiner and is currently an external examiner at the Royal College of Art.

Malcolm is creative director at Images&Co. Since 1977 he has earned a global reputation for his influence on graphic design and popular culture, and is noted for his commitment to design education and the creative industries. Having established AMX in 1994, one of the first digital agencies in Shoreditch, he became the first Royal Designer in “new media” and was elected Master of the Faculty in 2013. He is an Ambassador for Manchester School of Art and co-curator of Design Manchester.

Jonathan Ive is Apple’s Chief Design Officer, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. Jony is responsible for all design at Apple, including the look and feel of Apple hardware, user interface, packaging, major architectural projects such as Apple Campus 2 and Apple’s retail stores, as well as new ideas and future initiatives.

Since 1996, Jony has led Apple’s design team, which is widely regarded as one of the world’s best. He holds over 5,000 patents and has been recognized with numerous design awards, including the Design Museum London's first Designer of the Year in 2003, the Design and Art Direction (D&AD) President's Award in 2005 and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's Product Design Award in 2007.

In 2012, D&AD named Jony and his team the Best Design Studio of the past 50 years. Their work is featured in the permanent collections of museums around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou in Paris.

Jony earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Newcastle Polytechnic. As an undergraduate, he twice won the Royal Society of Arts’ prestigious Student Design Award, and years later the RSA awarded him the title of Royal Designer for Industry. He also holds honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design and Northumbria University.

A native of London, Sir Jonathan Ive was made a Knight Commander of the British Empire in 2013 “for services to design and enterprise.”

Morag’s work is characterised by an engaging boldness, creating specific, local responses to each distinct audience that will see and experience the design, using it to create community and build identity.

Morag makes places from spaces that people like to be in, that stimulate and often make you smile. She creates and curates many different types of work. The eclectic breadth of work covers the conversion of a train to a café, installations, numerous exhibitions and even a temple.

Paul Priestman is a designer, co-founding director of PriestmanGoode and Global Creative Director of CRRC Sifang, one of the world’s largest rolling stock manufacturers. His work spans the breadth of industrial design from products to the New Tube for London, high speed trains, hotels and aircraft interiors. 

For over 25 years, the guiding principle in Priestman’s work has been his belief that design is not just about styling, but about making things better. This approach has led his studio to win a host of prestigious awards, including the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards, the Future Friendly Award for Sustainable Design Innovation and numerous Travel and Transport Awards around the globe. Today, Priestman is known not just for his client work, but for his award-winning future concepts – visionary ideas to improve our everyday lives and encourage sustainable, long-term thinking. He is an inspirational speaker on the subject of creative future thinking and the value of design to business. 

Priestman was Chair of the Design Sector Skills Panel from 2004 to 2006. He was also President of the Design Business Association from 2001 to 2003, a member of the D&AD Executive from 2005 to 2007 and a member of the Royal College of Art Council from 2010 to 2015. In 2010 and 2013, Priestman was selected to represent the UK’s creative industries on the Prime Minister’s Trade Delegations to China, flying the flag for British design around the world. This year, the Evening Standard – London’s leading newspaper – once again voted Priestman one of London’s 1000 most influential people.

John Sorrell is a UK Business Ambassador, appointed by successive Prime Ministers to help promote Britain’s Creative Industries abroad. 

John co-founded the Sorrell Foundation with Frances Sorrell (neé Newell) in 1999 and they also run the National Art&Design Saturday Club. 

He is chairman of University of the Arts London and is founder and chairman of the Creative Industries Federation. He is co-founder and chairman of the London Design Festival and recently co-founded the London Design Biennale. 

John was appointed CBE in 1996, was awarded the RSA Bicentenary Medal in 1998 and holds numerous Honorary Fellowships and degrees. John was awarded a Knighthood in the 2008 New Year Honours List for services to the Creative Industries.