DMU is a 7-minute long, silent, looping film installation commissioned by The Design Museum in London for the entrance of the permanent exhibition on Design entitled “Designer Maker User”. This large-scale projected film work is the introduction to the museum’s collection, looking at the development of modern design through these three interconnected roles and features almost 1000 items of twentieth and twenty-first-century design.

The exhibition covers a broad range of design disciplines, from architecture and engineering to the digital world, from fashion and graphic design. It features a bold, colorful and engaging display designed by Studio Myerscough, with a digital interactive work by Studio Kin.

DMU acts as a visual introduction to the exhibition, framing various creative processes and practices to reveal the relationships between these different roles. The film was directed by Christopher Thomas Allen and created over four months, involving a series of location shoots in various creative studios, workshops, maker spaces, factories, and production lines.

DMU features the studios and practices of many leading, London-based design studios and companies that include:

7th Design & Innovation, Anglepoise, Anthony Burrill, Assemble, Bibliotheque, Blackhorse Workshop, Brompton, Carréducker,  Digits 2 Widgets, Gainsborough Silk Mill, Herman Miller, Institute of Making, Kate Spade New York, Machines Room, MAP, Mowat & Co, Oliver Ruuger, Paul Smith, RSH+P, Simon Hasan, Technology Will Save Us, Fuseproject, United Visual Artists, Univeral Design Studio, Unto This Last & Zoe Arnold.

The full 7-minute film is viewable below. As this piece was commissioned without sound, we decided to create a new peice of music for this online film.

The music is composed by Tim Cowie and uses some analysis of the film to generate its melodies.

Project CREDITS:

Special thanks to:

Home Office Policy Lab, TFL, LCC Letter Press, Crafts Council,
Heathrow Airport & Anna Holsgrove