Among the 74 projects that have been shortlisted for this year's Beazley Designs of the Year awards is Tik Tok's viral Renegade dance, a steak grown from the eater's own cells and a 3D graphic of the coronavirus particle.
The annual awards, organised by London's Design Museum, highlight projects from the last year that have made a real-world impact in the spheres of digital, fashion, graphic and product design as well as transport and architecture.
This year's selected designs are on view in a dedicated exhibition from today until 28 March 2021. They are arranged in chronological order, effectively counting down to the months leading up to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The exhibition starts in January 2019 with Australian studio Jack and Huei proposing Bleached Coral, a more realistic alternative to Pantone's Living Coral, as colour of the year. Above: Jack and Huei proposed Bleached Coral as an alternative colour of the year. Top image: the CDC created a digital render of a coronavirus particle
Rather than attempting to track the progress of the still-unfolding pandemic, the exhibition only charts designs created up until January 2020, when the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention unveiled a 3D rendering of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and the city of Wuhan set out to erect a 1,000-bed coronavirus hospital in only 10 days.
"[We thought] we should leave the designs of the pandemic to breathe a bit and end the show in January 2020," explained Ma...