Why We Write: An Event on the Future of Design Writing

A Festival of Royal Design

By Sarah Snaith

One of the best designs floating down London’s Thames River for the Diamond Jubilee Pageant is not surprisingly Her Majesty’s Royal Barge, The Spirit of Chartwell. The golden stern features two bearded faces met with dragon-like sea creatures that are lead by a triton-wielding female figure atop a bounding horse. The two sides some together in a red coat of arms marked with the Queen’s logo. The newly extended canopy obscures the royal family from forecasted showers yet to take over the skies and rain down on the barge and it’s accompanying thousand-string floatilla.

Designed by John Bennett, acclaimed television and film designer, the barge’s golden canopy was inspired by the idea of a diamond sitting on a red velvet cushion and places the Queen as it’s centrepiece.[1] Complimenting the red, gold and cream palette are potted long-stem fuschia roses and luscious boxed lavender. Along the length of the barge are further swathes of fuschia and crimson roses paired with dark green foliage arranged by Rachel de Thame and Mark Fane. Only the Queen could outshine it’s considered design.

Perched atop a head of short silver curls sits Her Majesty’s asymmetric white hat, with gathered textile details on the brim complimented with precious sequin and beaded decorative clusters. She sits next to her husband Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, on a pair of red and gold embroidered chairs. Beneath a shawl worn to protect her from the worsening conditions, is a single-breasted jacket with a ruffled edge. Her Majesty’s eight-point diamond brooch shimmers as she continues her shaky semi-circular wave at the packed crowds that line the Thames. She smiles occasionally.

Some of the faces that meet her gaze are munching on Marks and Spencer’s sandwiches and kettle crisps, sipping rose-tinted sparkling wine from plastic glassware. To further celebrate her reign, British public and the world at large have been encouraged to join friends and family in having a Big Lunch. Riverside, they are realised in the form of picnics and pack-lunches. Commemorative tins of shortbread smear the painted faces and soil union-jack themed outfits. Rain begins to pour but cannot dampen the festive mood.

That is the power of royalty. For all the details you’ve just read, apart from those atmospheric ones, are second hand, viewed through an iPad screen over a man’s shoulder, seen just barely through the gaps in people’s legs, watched on big screens placed incrementally along the Thames and relived through press photographs after the fact.

The writer doesn’t always get to see the finest details but they always get to feel it.

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[1] Chris Hastings, ‘Not long to rain over us…if you trust the forecasters: Met Office talks up ‘dry-spell’ but Royal Barge designer is taking no chances’ Mail Online June 3^rd, 2012.