Design Ventura 2019 Celebration Event

Posted by Poppy Parry on February 19 2020

Design Ventura

On Thursday 13 February the Design Ventura team welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools to the Design Museum for a special day celebrating design.

The day was kicked off by Fiona MacDonald, Head of Learning at the Design Museum, who was followed by two great talks, one from Jessica Ryan-Ndegwa from Design for Disability and another about Learning to Fail from Paul Jenkins at Triple Double.

After tea and cake and while friends and family were on a tour of Beazley Designs of the Year, students had a chance to participate in an exciting paper forms workshop led by designer Haidée Drew and a typography workshop led by Sarah Hyndman from Type Tasting.

Typography workshop led by Sarah Hyndman

In the afternoon students and guests enjoyed a careers insight speed networking activity, which allowed them to ask experts from industry about how their creative and enterprise skills have supported their successful transition into the workplace.

Speed networking with Samuel Mensah from Youth Worldwide

In the evening, the Design Museum opened its doors to the shortlisted school teams, their teachers, family and friends, Deutsche Bank employees, Design Industry Experts, the Design Museum team and special VIP guests to celebrate the success of Design Ventura 2019.

The Design Ventura Celebration Event, the Design Museum

The event gave the students a chance to explain their innovative products to guests, network with people from the industry and be advocates for their schools. Guest were really impressed with the confidence and communication skills that the students demonstrated.

Last year’s winners Simon Balle All-through School presented a cheque of £2,479.24 from the proceeds of their product (Active Snap) to a representative of their chosen charity, MOVE.

Simon Balle All-through Students presenting the cheque to Luke Green from MOVE

The anticipated announcement of the Design Ventura 2019 awards was presented by the judges: Katie Greenyer, Morag Myerscough and Joseph Halligan.

The prizes were awarded as follows: Blythe Bridge High School, County Upper School, George Spencer Academy and Wallington High School for Girls were awarded as Outstanding Finalists; Ashcroft Technology Academy was awarded Commendation for Most Market Ready Product; Cardinal Newman Catholic School was awarded Commendation for Ingenuity; and Upton-by-Chester High School was awarded Commendation for the Sustainable Design. The third place was awarded to Trinity School; second place was awarded to Ferndown Upper School and finally the Design Ventura Winner 2019 was Twynham School with Design Cubes.

Following the award ceremony, the Design Ventura Exhibition with prototypes from all ten shortlisted schools was unveiled. This year, the display also includes all past winning student designed products from the past decade of the programme and an interactive area where members of the public can tackle the Design Ventura brief. The display is up until 27 May.

The Design Ventura Exhibition, the Design Museum

The Celebration Event was about celebrating design and congratulating all those involved in Design Ventura 2019. Thank you to everyone who participated in the Design Ventura project making it such a success!