The Hall of Fame acknowledges the achievements of designers and industry figures in the middle of their careers who have already made a significant impact as well as those who have made a lifelong impact. You can see who has been inducted into the Hall of Fame in previous years, here.
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian started out with a BA in textile design before going on to do the Design Interactions masters at Royal College of Art and also holds a PhD in human geography and political philosophy.
Today she is director of Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios, where she leads experience design projects which tell rich stories that are performative and informative, encouraging audiences to ask big questions, philosophise or participate.
While Ben Hayoun-Stépanian is known for her self-initiated work she has also collaborated with a host of brands and organisations including WeTransfer, Google and MoMA. Most recently with Porsche on a project to explore pluralistic futures.
In this video you’ll get a glimpse of the energy and thought that she brings to these projects, while finding out how she became the designer she is today.
We get into why she started University of the Underground to shake-up design education and why decentralising power structures is a motivation across her work.
The interview touches on her films, which include I Am (Not) A Monster where leading thinkers are pushed to think about the origins of knowledge while reflecting on why the likes of Trump and Le Pen are able to use past ideologies to gain popularity.
It also takes in multi-verses, alternative futures and the importance of pluralistic thinking, but there’s barely time to get into her love of space, so do go and check out one of her landmark projects: The International Space Orchestra, which is composed of NASA scientists.
Lou Downe
Downe graduated from Goldsmiths in fine art in 2008, joining Tate where they quickly moved from an editorial role to a production one, working as a commissioning producer across the Tate brands.
At this stage they were already shaping Tate’s digital strategy and thinking about how it operated as a service. In the following years they picked up a masters in economics while sharpening up strategic and service design skills, firstly at EY helping businesses create customer-centric services and later at service design specialists Engine helping utility companies transform core services.
Switching to the public sector Downe joined Government Digital Services (GDS) in 2014 leading the service design team and later design team, helping UK Government establish service design standards. Projects included founding and directing a £5 million programme of products and teams working on service transformation across government.
In 2019 they became director of housing and land transformation for UK Government before striking out on their own in 2020 as founder and director of The School of Good Services where they train organisations to help build and maintain good services.
Downe’s work is full of examples of organisational transformation, which benefits service providers and users. If you want to know how and why they do it, watch our video interview where Downe also reveals what makes a good service designer and how you can become one.
Hall of Fame
