What it’s like to volunteer for Design Ventura

Hello, I’m Paul Jenkins, the Founder and Creative Director at Triple Double. We are a design studio who solve problems and get work done – creating, refreshing and fixing. Oh, and we love basketball. We work with clients such as adidas Originals, Airbnb, BBC, Ellesse, General Assembly, Mercari Europe, Nike, Thames & Hudson and Wellcome Collection.

My role involves leading on creative and design projects, working collaboratively with clients and their internal teams. We team up with specialist collaborators across design, illustration, photography, film and digital when needed as well. Before starting Triple Double, I held design, creative and art director roles at Selfridges, Mother London, U-Dox and Pentland Brands.

Over the years I’ve worked across sports and fashion brands, from campaigns and product launches to projects such as Nike78. It was a natural fit for my experience so when I was asked to be the design volunteer supporting the Independent school winner’s prize day in April 2017, I jumped at the opportunity.

The team from Royal Grammar School, in Newcastle came up with a fantastic product ‘Kit Control’, a visual checklist tool enabling the user to physically and mentally check off items of sporting clothing as they pack their sports bag. We’ve all been there and forgotten that important piece of sports kit so I think the idea is really great!

I presented my research and previous sport related projects then worked with the students to develop ‘Kit Control’ branding, packaging and point of sale concepts. It was great to see all the team members (including their teachers!) get stuck in to designing logos and packaging ideas, presenting their work for critique as we went along. We eventually tested the ideas out in the Design Museum shop, gathering customer and staff feedback, and it’s fair to say the students were pretty chuffed with the responses.

 

Both myself and the studio do a lot of work around design education, as we love to teach and mentor to help others gain skills. Being able to work with the students was inspiring, as it always is when working with the museum’s education team. Being able to work quickly and develop ideas and concepts with young people energises my own work, and every time, the results surprise me – the students are really that good and represent a bright future for the design industry.

I’m already looking forward to working with more Design Ventura students and the Design Museum team this year.

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See what Peta Miller, from Nash Design has to say about volunteering for Design Ventura.