The Design Museum Collection is made up by over 2000 objects that range from the early Modernism of the 1900s to the cutting edge of contemporary design. The Collection tells the history of design in mass production and includes furniture, lighting, domestic appliances and communications technology. The Collection is an important record of the key designs which have shaped the modern world.

Following a process of reviewing the museum's Collection, as well as its handling collection and archive, for the first time in five years, highlights from the Collection are now on display in current exhibition This is Design. The exhibition, brings together design classics alongside more unusual objects to look at themes including Identity, manufacturing innovations, the digital revolution and lifecycle.

This is Design include prototypes, samples, models, first editions and finished industrial objects demonstrating the design process and subsequent influence of design on the contemporary culture. Alongside completed objects, the display will also include the tools used to make them, demonstrating the full range of the museum’s interests, and set out its approach to explaining and understanding the impact of design, showing until 22 January 2012.

In 2011, fourteen classics were added to the Design Museum Collection, including a Sony Walkman, a Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle and an example of the motorway signage system, designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert in 1960. These new aquisitions are part of developing the Design Museum Collection ahead of the relocation to the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington in 2014.

Full list of acquisitions:
Arcade Machine (Space Invaders, 1978)
M1 Motorway sign (1960)
Rifle, Kalashnikov AK-47 (1945 -47)
LookSoFlat prototype lamp (2010)
3D Mouse Novint Falcon (2006)
Portable Radio (Regency TR-1, 1954)
Typewriter – Valentine (1969)
Ipogeo Lamp (2009)
Childrens Chair (Tripp Trapp, 1972)
The Face Magazine 1980 - 2004
Kindle Electronic Book Reader, 2007
Portable CD Player (D50 MKII Discman, 1984)
Mini Disc Recorder (Sony MZ1, 1992)
Sony Portable Cassette Player (TPS L2 Walkman, 1979)