Harriet Atkinson

Harriet Atkinson's research is focused on the history of design for communication. From February 2019 to January 2023 Harriet is AHRC Leadership Fellow, working on the project '"The Materialisation of Persuasion": Modernist Exhibitions in Britain for Propaganda and Resistance, 1933 to 1953'. This builds on her recent University of Brighton Rising Stars Award (2017-18), for a project entitled 'Information, Persuasion, Citizenship: Public Exhibitions 1914 to now'. Harriet teaches across all years and pathways of the BA (Hons) History of Art & Design (History of Art & Design; Visual Culture; Fashion & Dress History; Philsophy Politics Art; as well as Critical & Cultural Studies to BA (Hons) Graphic Design and BA (Hons) Illustration.

Harriet has previously held research awards from the AHRC (Doctoral Award), British Academy (Small Grant) and Wingate Foundation (Wingate Scholarship). She is a member of the Management Board of University of Brighton's Centre for Design History and since 2015 she has been Trustee and Research Grants Officer of the Design History Society. While a Faculty Fellow based in the University of Brighton Design Archives from 2010 to 2013, Harriet wrote a number of essays, reviews and her first monograph The Festival of Britain: A Land and its People (I.B. Tauris, 2012). Harriet was awarded her doctorate from the Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum's joint history of design programme in 2007. She studied for a BA (Hons) in English and Related Literature with History of Art at University of York and for her MA in Art Museum Studies at the Courtauld Institute, University of London. She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Harriet is on the Advisory Board for the Bloomsbury Design Library. She regularly undertakes peer reviews:

for journals + publishers including Journal of Design History, The Sculpture Journal, Literature & History, Critical Studies, Contemporary British History and Bloomsbury Academic, Berg, Palgrave Macmillan, Manchester University Press;

for academic conferences including DHS, ICDHS, Design Research Society, International Association of Societies of Design Research;

for academic grant applications and awards including Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Icelandic Research Fund. 

Before studying for a PhD Harriet worked in cultural policy and funding for various organisations including as Policy Adviser at Department for Culture Media & Sport, Grants Officer at Heritage Lottery Fund and Culture and Regeneration Manager at Association of London Government.

Harriet is interested in supervising PhDs on the history of visual communication for propaganda or protest; government engagements with design, design politics and policy; design as the focus for diplomatic exchange or displays of 'soft power'; relationships between design history and design practice; and the design of exhibitions and displays, particularly beyond museums and galleries.