Royal College of Art announces dynamic line-up for London Design Festival 2026

From student-led showcases tackling contemporary design challenges to major alumni exhibitions and research-driven museum interventions, RCA creators continue to shape the global design landscape.

InResponse in the Brompton Design District brings together 30 graduating designers from the RCA’s MA Design Products programme, presenting design as an active form of enquiry rather than simply an act of object-making. The exhibition explores how objects answer to real-world friction across three distinct pillars: ECHO, MATTER, SYNC, and considers how memory, material and the human body shape the objects we make.

RCA alumni Hanson Cheng (MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering, 2020), founder of .obj, and Adam Waldron (MA Visual Communication, 2016), co-founder of Super Ornament, are joining forces for Shape of Scent. Marking the first official collaboration between their respective design studios, the exhibition explores the intersection of fragrance and form. Through a series of unique furniture pieces, Shape of Scent investigates how ephemeral scents can be reinterpreted and translated into tangible design.

Prominent British graphic artist and designer, Emma J Shipley (MA Textiles, 2011) – celebrated for her maximalist, luxury print designs in fabrics and accessories – will host a ‘Meet the Designer’ session at EGGER London on 16 September. In a relaxed session over a networking lunch, participants will be invited to explore the designer’s work, her creative process, and consider how pattern and statement pieces transform hospitality interiors.

Gallery FUMI and the Royal College of Art present AFTER SCHOOL, an exhibition showcasing inventive new works across textiles, ceramics, and design by recent RCA graduates including Caden Hao (MA Design Products, 2025), Andreas Larsson (MA Ceramics & Glass, 2026), Manxin Li (MA Textiles, 2026), Jocelyn Mastroianni (MA Textiles, 2026), Lucy Pennell (MA Ceramics & Glass, 2026), Ryan Tepper (MA Ceramics & Glass, 2026), Shannon Swinburn (MA Textiles, 2024). Spotlighting process and material experimentation, the showcase bridges the gap between academia and the broader design landscape.

The Bank of England Museum and the Royal College of Art present A Kind of Exchange, an exhibition which responds materially to the question of what connects us, materially, socially, and culturally. Featuring work from RCA Alumni Adam Knight, Blake Carlson-Joshua, Martha McGuinn and Micaella Pedros, and RCA staff Alkesh Parmar, Ekua McMorris, Dr Susannah Haslam & Jack Mama, practitioners engage with themes of commerce, exchange, and colonial histories having been given a rare opportunity to work directly with a unique material: the Bank of England's shredded waste banknotes.