Creative round-up September 2025
It’s time for another of our design round-ups…every so often the Ingenious Design team likes to share an eclectic selection of recent design news that has caught our eye…
London Design Festival 2025
The annual London Design Festival (LDF) ran from 13-21 September 2025 with a citywide programme of design events including exhibitions, installations, fairs, talks, workshops, product launches and open showrooms, many with underlying themes of sustainability.
Public installations are an LDF staple. This year's highlights included What Nelson Sees by designer Paul Cocksedge, a freestanding structure in Trafalgar Square made of sky-facing telescopic tubes. Visitors were invited to look through the tubes and experience the city through the vantage point of the square's landmark monument, Nelson's Column.
Designer Lee Broom presented Beacon, a chandelier-like installation on the Southbank, made from discarded glass fragments arranged to reference the area's brutalist architecture.
At the V&A, Heal, Home, Hmmm by artist Roo Dhissou showcased a clay pavilion constructed using traditional Punjabi mud building techniques. The museum's garden also featured The Ripple Effect, a 2,000-tile installation by artist Alicja Patanowska, designed to explore the hidden consequences of copper mining.
Interrogating how we use materials has become intrinsic to LDF's programming, led by its "cornerstone fair" Material Matters. This year, the show took place at Holborn's Space House and brought together works from a range of brands and designers who explore the many different roles materials play in our lives.
And there was plenty more to see with more than 400 events across 10 different Design Districts.
60 years of Wolff Olins
Wolff Olins is one of the design world’s most consistently creative studios and has just celebrated 60 years of pushing the boundaries of what branding can be. From the The Beatles’ Apple Records in 1968 to First Direct in 1989 to beauty brand Benefit in 2024, the studio has never followed trends but is renowned for its inventive spirit.
In a fascinating article in Design Week, Emma Barratt, global executive creative director at Wolff Olins selects her stand-out projects from across the last six decades that sum up the studio’s unique approach to branding.
Read the full article here
The new VIGOZ Active Vehicle
A cross between an e-car and e-bike, the CIXI VIGOZ is a new hybrid vehicle with a chainless pedalling system and 22kWh battery, which integrates physical activity with a unique driving experience. Marketed as ‘an active vehicle to pedal up to 120 km/h comfortably, safely and intuitively’, will it be the future of environmentally friendly commuting?
Currently still in development, it’s been approved for use on public roads and all vehicle design, r&d and assembly is taking place at a facility in Poisy, near Annecy, France. And they’re getting closer to delivery!
Take a look at the CIXI website for full details.
AI and design
In another fascinating Design Week article which is part of a series asking design studios around the world how they are using AI, the focus is on global creative company, Buck which works on branding, events and design for clients like Airbnb, Samsung and YouTube.
Executive creative director and partner Vincent Lammers has this to say:
“We very much believe Humans, with a capital H, should stay in the driver’s seat. Clients want and need to collaborate with people they can build trust with. That relationship can’t be automated.
That said, there are many strategic and tactical areas where we see opportunities, and where we’re already implementing new tools. From analysing audience data and research, to unpacking briefs, to prototyping and exploration. We use it during our ideation or exploration phases, quickly testing or prototyping visual ideas.
Never as a final output though – it always starts and ends with human input.
These tools have also been empowering our 3D teams by speeding up repetitive or monotonous tasks, freeing our artists to focus on the things humans do best – creativity, storytelling, and craft.”
You can read the full article here