On 21–24 September 2017, London Design Fair presents its inaugural Material of the Year installation at Old Truman Brewery – a new initiative intended to explore and celebrate the materials having the biggest impact on the contemporary design world.
For the first edition, the fair has selected a material whose near-limitless versatility has seen an explosion in its use among designers and which has formed – or been incorporated into – many of the most vividly colourful and finely detailed products of the last 12 months.

Jesmonite – the lightweight acrylic-modified gypsum composite first developed in 1984 – has a unique capacity to create an almost endless array of appearances and surface textures – down to the finest level of detail. It can be used in isolation or mixed with other materials to introduce distinct visual effects.
One maker who has been taking advantage of the material’s flexibility is product designer Ariane Prin, founder of PRIN London, who has been working with Jesmonite for the last four years. Her RUST collection of vessels, launched during London Design Festival in 2015, makes use of a combination of Jesmonite and metal dust from key-cutting waste. As the metal oxidises, it lends a unique texture, colour and surface pattern to the vessel, ensuring no two RUST pieces are ever the same.
For the Material of the Year exhibition, London Design Fair has invited PRIN London to push the limits of this technique still further, by creating a site-specific installation that responds to the architecture of the Old Truman Brewery.
Image Credits: Oxidised metal at PRIN London studio. | Photography by Francois Devulder. Styling by Julie Boucherat.
PRESS RELEASE
21 Aug 2017
Material of the Year 2017 - Jesmonite x PRIN London