Best designs and designers of 2023

Best designs and designers of 2023: ‘A chunk of glossy sexiness’, The Guardian, 14 December 2023

From 3D-printed headphones to a museum dedicated to crabs, our panel of experts pick the designs and designers of the year.

Banksy’s Bad Crabs. Source: Crab Museum, Margate.

From left to right: Mary Wollstoncraft by artist Rowan Gillespie, Andu Masebo Part Exchange, Mac Collins domino. Composite: Guardian Design/Andu Masebo/Oliver Wainwright/Fennell Photography.

Althea McNish: Colour is Mine designed by Bushra Mohamad/Msoma Architects and Nana Biama-Ofosu/YAA Projects Photograph: Nicola Tree.

Chosen by Adam Nathaniel Furman, artist and designer

A brilliant celebration of one of the greatest – but not exhibited enough – British textile designers, this show is the kind of celebration of the power of craft and design that we need to see more of. The wonderful exhibition design by the amazing Bushra Mohamad/Msoma Architects and Nana Biama-Ofosu/YAA Projects was an exemplary instance of how small projects can be brilliant platforms for showcasing the very best of upcoming new talent. The show, while small, was an iconic marker of a new approach to architecture in the UK by two of its brightest and most interesting young stars.

Runout by artist and designer Mac Collins

Mac Collins’ sculpture Runout at the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2023, architecture Photograph: Oliver Wainwright.

Mac’s vernacular conveys a chapter of intergenerational British-Caribbean experiences that mediate what it is to partake within British society whilst navigating knowing that your genealogy, is not that of your birthplace.

His ebonised ash timber sculpture ‘Runout’ seeks to combine the study of geography, essence and belonging through form, select treated materials and familiar yet lucid objects – including the domino and what appears as a deity-influenced form – relevant to West Africa’s Kingdom of Benin.

The new design collaboration SR_A x Kohler launched last week at Design Miami

Kibu headphones by Morrama Lab and Batch.Works

Chosen by Minnie Moll, chief executive, Design Council

These headphones for children are my pick of the year as the circular manufacturing company Batch.Works and design consultancy Morrama Lab have truly put the planet at the heart of their design. They have considered modularity to allow them to be easily repaired and adapted to fit as children grow. Materiality is addressed with parts 3D printed from biodegradable plastic, and circularity by developing a tracking method for recycled components. We need more ingenious designs like this for products that respect our planet.

A House for Artists by APPARATA

Chosen by Joseph Henry, urbanist and co-founder of Sound Advice

A House for Artists is an incredible piece of architecture by emerging practice APPARATA, supported by the Mayor of London, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and Create London. We never think about the role of the public sector in design but this project is a demonstration of how it can use design and design thinking to be innovative to deliver social impact. The creative industries are one of the most important sectors in the UK, but we have a lack of infrastructure in place to support the people who produce the amazing work that enriches our lives. A House for Artists is a great blueprint for how we can deploy designs at a strategic level through mission driven partnerships.

Alex Goad’s Reef Design Lab

Chosen by Shelley Simpson, designer and founder of Mud Australia ceramics

We spend a lot of time near and in the sea so we are very aware of the impact of climate change on the ocean and harbour where we live in Sydney. Alex Goad is from the latest generation of designers who have inherited this mess and are practically oriented towards fixing it. The erosion mitigation units installation in Corio Bay at Geelong, Victoria, uses 200cm wide units of ecoblend concrete and seashell aggregate to poetically address and resolve site-specific erosion and habitat damage in coral reefs. All of his work has a real-world practical application but also makes you question how we got here.

The British Pavilion at the 18^th Venice Architecture Biennale

Thunder and Şimşek a large-scale installation by Jayden Ali at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2023. Photograph: British Council.

Chosen by Charlene Prempeh and Lewis Gilbert of creative agency A Vibe Called Tech

“There is reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend,” was the James Baldwin quote that served as the provocation for Dancing Before the Moon, the British Pavilion presentation at the 18^th Venice Architecture Biennale. Individually the collective of curators are brilliant – Jayden Ali designed the hugely celebrated Fashion Masculinities at the V&A, Joseph Henry is currently the Loeb fellow at Harvard, Meneesha Kellay is the senior curator, contemporary at the V&A and Sumitra Upham is head of programmes at the Crafts Council – and together, there was a certain alchemy that made the exploration of spatial practice for diasporic communities both gleeful and momentous.

Women’s portrait busts at Trinity College Old Library, Dublin

Bust of Mary Wollstonecraft by artist Rowan Gillespie installed this year in Trinity’s Old Library Photograph: Chris Bellew/Fennell Photography.

Chosen by Katy Hessel, art historian and author of The Story of Art Without Men

On St Brigid’s Day (1 February) four portrait busts of women, for the first time, were installed in Trinity College’s Old Library, alongside 40 marble busts of men (a collection that began in 1743). Represented are: scientist Rosalind Franklin; dramatist Augusta Gregory; mathematician Ada Lovelace; and feminist rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft. What I love about this is that each bust corresponds to the trailblazing woman’s accomplishments – for example, the crystals worn by Rosalind Franklin reference her use of X-ray crystallography to research the structure of DNA, and Lovelace’s 3D-scanned portrait has appropriately been constructed using techniques enabled by computer programmes.

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