Design

The art of menus

1 October 2022 9:00 am

Jonathan Meades on the art of menus

The art of the Christmas card

18 December 2021 9:00 am

It’s the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope, the beginning of the end of a civilised Christmas. It…

Absurd and amusing, solemn and scholarly: Charles Jencks's Cosmic House reviewed

2 October 2021 9:00 am

An editor once told me: always look at the loos. It was remarkable, she said, how many grand cultural projets,…

Meet the woman who designed Britain's revolutionary road signs

21 November 2020 9:00 am

Laura Gascoigne meets Margaret Calvert, the designer who dragged British signposting into the modern era

The rise of blocked-off design

3 October 2020 9:00 am

Plexiglass bubbles hover over diners’ heads in restaurants. Plastic pods, spaced six feet apart, separate weightlifters in gyms. Partitions of…

The art of street furniture

29 August 2020 9:00 am

On his lockdown rambles, Christopher Howse finds beauty and solace in London’s street furniture

The weird and wonderful world of hotel carpets

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Sophie Haigney on the weird and wonderful world of hotel carpets

The history, power and beauty of infographics

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

on the history, power and beauty of infographics

Enchanting – but don’t fall for the mummified rubber duck in the gift shop: Tutankhamun reviewed

18 January 2020 9:00 am

Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…

Meet Congo, the Leonardo of chimps, whose paintings sell for £14,500

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Three million years ago one of our ancestors, Australopithecus africanus, picked up a pebble and took it home to its…

A museum-quality car-boot sale: V&A’s Cars reviewed

7 December 2019 9:00 am

We were looking at a 1956 Fiat Multipla, a charming ergonomic marvel that predicted today’s popular MPVs. Rather grandly, I…

‘The Yucca Motel’, 1995, by Fred Sigman

Geoff Dyer on the poetry of motels

22 June 2019 9:00 am

It’s to be expected. You take photographs in order to document things — Paris in the case of Eugène Atget…

Toy theatres on the stage: the set designs of Maurice Sendak

1 June 2019 9:00 am

I must have seen hundreds of opera productions in my time. Out of these, hardly any made a lasting impression…

Plastic fantastic: British Industried Fair, 1948

How plastic saved the elephant and tortoise

1 June 2019 9:00 am

Plastics — even venerable, historically eloquent plastics — hardly draw the eye. As this show’s insightful accompanying publication (a snip…

Mary, Mary, quite contrary: Mary Quant and fellow-revolutionary Vidal Sassoon in 1964

My ringside seat on the Mary Quant revolution

30 March 2019 9:00 am

I think I probably qualify as the oldest fashion editor in the world, because in spite of my advanced age…

‘Wonderground Map of London Town’, 1914, by Max Gill

Not as good as his immoral brother Eric but still wonderful: Max Gill at Ditchling reviewed

16 February 2019 9:00 am

MacDonald ‘Max’ Gill (1884–1947) is less well known than his notorious brother, Eric. But was he less of a designer,…

Twiggy photographed by Justin de Villeneuve in the Rainbow Room at Big Biba, early 1970s. [JUSTIN DE VILLENEUVE]

A short history of art deco – from high art to two-tone shoes, garden gates to Twiggy

1 December 2018 9:00 am

On 10 September 1973 the 1930s Kensington High Street department store formerly known as Derry & Toms reopened as Big…

‘The Paston Treasure’, detail of a little girl, unknown artist, Dutch School, c. 1663

A historical whodunnit that lets you into a forgotten world: The Paston Treasure reviewed

1 September 2018 9:00 am

In 1675 Lady Bedingfield wrote to Robert Paston, first Earl of Yarmouth. Never, she exclaimed, had she seen anything so…

Volcano of invention: Alexander Calder at Hauser & Wirth Somerset

Alexander Calder was a volcano of invention

23 June 2018 9:00 am

In the Moderna Museet in Stockholm there is a sculpture by Katharina Fritsch, which references Chekhov’s famous story ‘Lady with…

Coloured proof from ‘English as She is Spoke’ by Pedro Carolino, 1960, by Edward Bawden

Edward Bawden is deservedly one of Britain’s most popular 20th century artists

9 June 2018 9:00 am

‘When I’m on good form,’ Edward Bawden told me, ‘I get to some point in the design and I laugh…

From left to right: embroidered linen jacket, 1620s; pine marten fur hat, Caroline Reboux, 1895; man’s silk waistcoat embroidered in silk with a pattern of macaque monkeys, 1780–89

This V&A show, about fashion’s fascination with the natural world, will seduce and appal

21 April 2018 9:00 am

One of the prettiest pieces in the V&A exhibition Fashioned from Nature is a man’s cream waistcoat, silk and linen,…

Hobbit houses and 3-D homes – everything about these videos should be intensely irritating

7 April 2018 9:00 am

Since 2006, someone called Kirsten Dirksen has been posting weekly videos on YouTube about ‘simple living, self-sufficiency, small (and tiny)…

Detail of ‘Riveters’ from the series ‘Shipbuilding on the Clyde’, 1941, by Stanley Spencer

Are cruise liners the solution to the housing crisis?

10 February 2018 9:00 am

Looking at the sketchbook of William Whitelock Lloyd, a soldier-artist who joined a P&O liner after surviving the Anglo-Zulu War,…

Draft of the first Ferrari car, 125 S, designed by Gioachino Colombo, 1945

Ferrari – heavy, expensive, wasteful, dangerous and addictive

20 January 2018 9:00 am

Has a more beautiful machine in all of mankind’s fretful material endeavours ever been made than a ’60 Ferrari 250…

Design everything for the disabled and you can’t go wrong

16 December 2017 9:00 am

About 30 years ago, BT introduced a telephone handset with enormous keys. It was intended for people with serious visual…