Brighton academics win national film award for documentary revealing private world of iconic designer

A short film produced by University of Brighton researchers has won Best Short Documentary at the London Independent Film Festival.

‘Designing from Home’ explores the home life and creative legacy of FHK Henrion, one of Britain’s most influential post-war designers.

The film was produced by academics from the university’s Centre for Design History and offers an intimate look at the pioneering graphic designer’s life and work.

The 16-minute film, co-directed by University of Brighton researchers Dr Harriet Atkinson and Dr Sue Breakell, won the top prize for short documentaries ahead of dozens of international entries at the London Independent Film Festival.

As an artist with Jewish heritage, Henrion fled Nazi Germany in 1933, moving first to Paris and then to London three years later, where he worked on wartime propaganda projects for the UK Ministry of Information and the US Office of War Information. Some of his most iconic work, including identities for Tate & Lyle, the National Theatre and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

The film centres on the house where Henrion lived and worked for over four decades in Hampstead, combining his family life with his creative practice until his death in 1990. It uses newly recorded interviews with his family as well as a collection of his most rarely seen works currently kept at the Design Archives, to highlight how everyday routines, relationships and domestic surroundings shaped his creative output.

Dr Sue Breakell, Director of the University of Brighton Design Archives, and co-director of the film, said: “We’re thrilled to have won this award, which feels like recognition for what we wanted to do with the film: to connect with audiences through the story of this house and the people who lived and worked there, and through the archive that we look after. It’s been incredibly rewarding to see how this kind of research can resonate beyond academia and spark curiosity about design in everyday life.”

The film’s success at the London Independent Film Festival, which celebrates emerging and independent filmmakers from around the world, reflects a growing recognition of practice-based research being shared through creative and accessible formats, extending the impact of research beyond traditional academic settings.

Designing from Home continues to be shown at special screenings at cultural, heritage, and educational institutions, as well as at documentary film festivals. It shows next at the Gordon Russell Museum at Worcestershire on Friday 8 May 2026. Further screening details be found on the University of Brighton Design Archives.

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