Design Ventura 2022-23 Winner The Piggott School
Image: Stack It! (Final Product)

Design Ventura 2022-23: Stack It! by the Piggott School

The Piggott School won with STACK IT! (we kept the exclamation mark for final branding!), a 3D puzzle game. The final form is almost identical in shape, size, and packaging to their wooden prototype, but is made out of recycled white goods from Smile Plastics instead.

Design Agency Support: Map Project Office
Charity: TBC
Amount raised: TBC

Design Ventura 2021-22 Winner Cambourne Village College
Image: Eco Seed (Final Product)

Design Ventura 2021-22: Eco Seed by Cambourne Village College

Cambourne Village College won with their product Eco Seed, an endlessly reusable seedling propagator in the form of a mini ‘life preserver’ ring. We were impressed by their attention to the small details, right down to the innovative packaging.

Design Agency Support: Triple Double Studio and Batch.Works
Charity: MND Association
Amount raised: £2550.42

Design Ventura 2020 Winner Heckmondwike Grammar School
Image: Grow Wild (Final Product)

Design Ventura 2020-21: Sow Beautiful by Heckmondwike Grammar School

Heckmondwike Grammar School won with their product Sow Beautiful, a flower seed cannon that creates a source of pollen for bees.

Design Agency Support: Tom, Dick and Harry
Charity: Kirkwood Hospice
Amount raised: £1849.00

Design Ventura 2019: Creative [Un]Blocks by Twynham School

Twynham School won with their product originally called Design Cubes (now Creative [Un]blocks), a set of dice that help combat creative block. Users roll three dice to create a brief that they have to answer in 60 seconds.

Design Agency Support: Triple Double
Charity: Rainforest Alliance UK
Amount raised: £1,560

Design Ventura 2019: Active Snap by Simon Balle All-through School

Simon Balle All-through School won with their product originally called Hit Snap (now Active Snap), a version of the game Snap to help players keep active. When a match is made, the opponent must perform the exercises pictured on the card. This product went on to be developed by Tomy Toys UK for nationwide sale.

Design Agency Support: Triple Double
Charity: MOVE
Amount raised: £2,615

Design Ventura 2017: Petal Pot by Weatherhead High School

Weatherhead High School won with their product called Petal Pot, a plant pot made from GumTec (recycled chewing gum) that expands as the plant grows, reducing the waste of replacing pots.

Design Agency Support: Giles Miller Studio
Charity: Claire House Children’s Hospice
Amount raised: £1,694

Design Ventura 2016: Hook ₂O by Harrogate Grammar School

Harrogate Grammar School won with their product originally called Aqua Hook (now Hook ₂O), a hook to hold your water bottle outside of your bag to help avoid spillages.

Design Agency Support: Giles Miller Studio
Charity: Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre
Amount raised: £1,079

Design Ventura 2015: Dazzle Racer by Finchley Catholic High School

Finchley Catholic High School won with their product originally called Wheeley’s (now Dazzle Racer), a racing vehicle toy powered by an elastic band and inspired by dazzle ships.

Design Agency Support: Kin
Charity: Great Ormond Street Hospital
Amount raised: £1,570

Design Ventura 2014: Card Cogs by Burnage Academy for Boys

Burnage Academy for Boys won with their product originally called Kard’lapse (now Card Cogs), coloured acrylic discs that allow you to connect playing cards together to create sculptural structures.

Design Agency Support: MultiAdaptor
Charity: The Christie NHS Foundation
Amount raised: £1,864

Design Ventura 2013: Squeezeys by Weald of Kent Grammar School

Weald of Kent Grammar School won with their product originally called Sliderz (now Squeezeys), Fun shaped squeezers that help you to squeeze tubes without losing any contents.

Design Agency Support: MultiAdaptor
Charity: The Brain Tumour Charity
Amount raised: £1,390

Design Ventura 2012: Pin Pics by Trinity Church of England School

Trinity Church of England School won with their product Pic Pins, a set of mix and match pin badges that depict famous London landmarks.

Design Agency Support: Build
Charity: The CATS Foundation
Amount raised: £914

Design Ventura 2011: BaDoiing! by Winner Walworth Academy

Walworth Academy won with their product originally called Slick Shooter (now BaDoiing!), a travel version of the game tiddly winks that fits neatly into your wallet.

Design Agency Support: Build
Charity: David Idowu Foundation
Amount raised: £804

Design Ventura 2010: Dove Bunting by Haberdasher’s Aske’s Hatcham College

Haberdasher’s Aske’s Hatcham College won with their product Dove Bunting, a kit to create cardboard bird bunting with blank pieces that you can decorate.

Design Agency Support: Build
Charity: Greenpeace
Amount raised: £1,141

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We had the opportunity to visit Huw and Mark at the ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ Design Agency at Castleton Mill in Leeds to discuss the development of our project.  

The main topic of discussion was to explore the potential for renaming the seed launcher to be more suited to its function. After initially writing down a wide range of words associated with our product and its use, we then experimented with different word combinations and discussed which title was most appropriate for the product.  

We haven’t yet decided which name to take forward, but it has given us plenty of food for thought. Mark and Huw then led us through ways in which we can use illustration and typography to ensure the branding is appealing to our target audience.  

The ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ Team will now apply their creative skills to explore different design opportunities to make the product appropriate for manufacture. We are looking forward to meeting up again in September to consider the next steps of our design journey.  

We can also highly recommend the toasties at the Castleton Mill Café! 

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Thank you to all the teachers and students who have worked so hard on this year’s project. The Covid-19 pandemic has made this a very challenging year, especially for teachers, students and schools. Despite these challenges, we have been incredibly impressed by the creativity and effort students have put into this year’s competition. This year we have a shortlist of seven state schools in the main competition to allow for social distancing at this year’s Celebration Event in June.

We had over 15,000 students participating this year, so our panel of shortlisting judges did not have an easy task. After much debate, the final top seven state school entries and top three schools in the International and Independent Category were selected – please see a full list in alphabetical order below.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

All schools that have submitted an entry for Design Ventura will receive feedback from our judges and will be sent participation certificates for their students by post – we will send these soon.

This year, all the shortlisted schools have been asked to submit a 3-minute pitch video to be reviewed by our pitching judges on 12 May. The top seven state schools will also attend a live Q&A session with the judges.

DESIGN VENTURA SHORTLIST 2020

(in alphabetical order)

County Upper School, Suffolk
Safari Matchimals
A set of flat pack safari animals with interchangeable body parts that can be coloured in and then mixed and matched to create new creatures.

Davison Church of England High School for Girls, West Sussex
Positivitree
A giftable plant in pyramidal packaging that is aimed at boosting mental wellbeing.

Ferndown Upper School, Dorset
‘Build & Play’ (Modernist House of Cards)
A pack of cards with iconic architectural designs on them which slot together to create new design structures.

Heckmondwike Grammar School, West Yorkshire
Sow Beautiful
A flower seed canon used to grow flowers and create a source of pollen for bees.

Parkside Community College, Cambridgeshire
The Shoe Button
A small gadget designed to help people learn how to tie their shoelaces.

The Burgess Hill Academy, West Sussex
Play Cube
A wooden play cube that contains toy cars and transforms into a road map play scene for young children.

Trinity School, Berkshire
Magic Leaf 
A leaf shaped device that lets you know if your plants need watering by changing colour from green to white.

INTERNATIONAL AND INDEPENDENT CATEGORY

Schools in this category will be contacted and will be asked to submit a three-minute video pitch. There will be an award day for this category in July.

(in alphabetical order)

Guildford High School
The Smart House Chart
A cardboard flat-pack house that can be assembled and decorated. It is intended as a reward chart for young children.

Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls
Bamboo Bauble
A set of customisable bauble decorations made from bamboo.

Merchant Taylors’ Girls’ School
Figaros
A board game that encourages creativity through prompt cards which tell players an object (e.g rocket ship) they have to recreate out of the provided shapes. Like Pictionary but with shapes.

The post Design Ventura Shortlist 2020 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Shahidha Bari
Shahidha Bari is an academic, critic and broadcaster. She is Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London.  She’s also the presenter of BBC Radio 3’s nightly Free Thinking programme, also known as the Arts and Ideas podcast, and the occasional host of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. She’s the author of “Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes” (2019), the winner of The Observer Anthony Burgess Arts Journalism Prize 2016 and has been a judge for the Forward Poetry Prizes and the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize. She writes for The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Frieze magazine. 

Sebastian Conran
Sebastian wanted to be an inventor whilst at school and got A levels in Maths Physics and Chemistry; then he studied Industrial Design Engineering at Central St. Martins, where he gave the Sex Pistols their first booking and designed record sleeves and posters for The Clash. After this he worked at corporate identity consultancy Wolff Olins followed by leading hard-goods development at Mothercare, after which he founded Sebastian Conran Associates design studio in 1986 and taught furniture design at the Royal College of Art. Sebastian is now a trustee of the Design Museum, Chair of the Conran Foundation and Conran + Partners, Visiting Professor of Design & Innovation at Bristol Robotics Lab, Designer in Residence at University of Sheffield engineering faculty; he also writes & lectures on innovation.

Yinka Ilori
The Design Ventura 2020 brief setter Yinka Ilori, is a London-based multidisciplinary artist, who specialises in storytelling by fusing his British and Nigerian heritage to tell new stories in contemporary design. Ilori’s work touches on various global themes that resonate with different audiences all over the world. Recent projects include The Dulwich Picture Gallery Pavilion 2019: The Colour Palace, the Thessaly Road Bridge underpass Happy Street, 2019 and the Project Earth window display for Selfridges, London.

Duncan Sanders
Duncan is Head of Trading at the Design Museum, with retail, catering and publishing all within his portfolio. Having worked in commercial roles at multitude of leading cultural organisations – including Museum of London, British Library and Southbank Centre – Duncan has a wealth of experience in product and brand development.

Christoph Woermann
Global Head of Corporate Bank Marketing at Deutsche Bank. Christoph has a passion for garden design and is an ardent supporter of the Design Ventura project and a seasoned member of the judging panel.

The post Design Ventura Judging Panel 2020 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Cynthia Voza Lusilu
Cynthia is a transdisciplinary designer born and raised in Paris. She is interested in working with people to collaboratively reimagine ways of learning, thinking, and making.

After graduating with a Masters in Design at Goldsmiths College, she started working as a project designer at CIVIC SQUARE, a Birmingham-based organisation that aims at building the social and civic infrastructure for neighbourhoods of the 21st century. She is currently a Designer in Residence at the Design Museum where she is exploring mental health in Black British communities and developing tools to promote wellbeing and emotional awareness.

Elaine Kelly
Elaine enjoys being a Design Ventura volunteer, and seeing how the school teams are able to develop and deliver such unique and innovative ideas and products. Working within Financial service organisations, Elaine always finds this level of creativity and innovation is both refreshing and inspiring. Elaine brings business insight from her experience working in financial services across multiple organisations and disciplines. Elaine has a keen interest in people and culture within the changing business environment, which is the area she specialised in for her MBA.  

Florence Okoye
Florence (pronouns: she/her) is a UX (User Experience) designer whose practice is based on using service design methods to inclusively design digital experiences and infrastructure. She currently works as a UX designer at the Natural History Museum and is a member of the Kiondo design collective.

Harry Mitchell
Harry co-founded Beta Design Office, a London based multi-disciplinary design consultancy with a core focus on industrial design. An inventor and maker at heart, Harry’s mechanical intuition and love for how things work means he designs products that last. Previously Associate Director at Sebastian Conran Associates, he has worked on a variety of projects from consumer robotics through to furniture, homewares, and custom motorcycles. 

Peta Miller
Peta is passionate about design, and believes in the power of the big idea as the starting point for every brand’s identity. Peta has over three decades of creative expertise, business acumen and production know-how, working directly with clients from most sectors, from global giants to innovative start-ups. Peta trained at Ravensbourne College of Art & Design (Foundation in Graphic Design), and Middlesex Polytechnic (BA Hons in Graphic Design). Peta is a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and has been a ‘Design Ventura’ industry expert volunteer since 2013.

Samuel Mensah
Samuel Mensah is a London based Creative, whose experience spans from Branding to Art Direction, Digital Product, and Industrial Design. Mensah has used his educational foundation as a springboard for his career. He has created and been credited with crafting award-winning campaigns and products globally for clients such as Nike, Google and Virgin. His self-initiated work and bespoke typefaces have been featured on platforms such as Creative Review, Adobe.com, Abduzeedo, and DesignYouTrust to name a few.

Sara-Jane Shore
Sara-Jane has been an active Design Ventura volunteer for a number of years, and supports workshops by providing practical business insight as a Technology Risk Manager at Deutsche Bank, along with her experience from studying art and graphic design. Sara-Jane enjoys seeing how participating Design Ventura schools are able to design, build and deliver innovative products to be sold in a business context.

The post Design Ventura Shortlisting Panel 2020 appeared first on Design Ventura.

The panel was made up of design and business professionals, who spoke about what they do for a living, how they got where they are and how they use creativity in their jobs, to give students an insight into industries such as fashion, architecture, product design and more.

You can watch the recording of the session below:

You can learn more about each panellist, in alphabetical order, below:

Abiola Onabule

Abiola Onabule is a London-born fashion designer with a masters in Womenswear from Central Saint Martins. She draws inspiration from her own cultural heritages, and through the stories and lives of women, abstracting, distorting and celebrating form through silhouette and cutting techniques. Her work looks to investigate the beauty and importance of individuality and difference. Abiola is one of the Design Museum’s Designers in Residence 2020.

www.abiolaonabule.com

Benni Allan

Benni Allan is founding director of EBBA Architects, an emerging architecture practice in London working across a wide range of sectors including the arts, culture, education and housing. He is also creative director and co-founder of AORA, an online virtual gallery and members platform. Benni is also Lecturer at the University of Greenwich and co-chair of the Architecture Foundation Young Trustees. 

www.eb-ba.co

Florence Okoye

Florence Okoye (pronouns: she/her) is a UX (User Experience) designer whose practice is based on using service design methods to inclusively design digital experiences and infrastructure. She currently works as a UX designer at the Natural History Museum and is a member of the Kiondo design collective.

www.finokoye.com

Harry Mitchell

Harry co-founded Beta Design Office, a London based multi-disciplinary design consultancy with a core focus on industrial design. An inventor and maker at heart, Harry’s mechanical intuition and love for how things work means he designs products that last. Previously Associate Director at Sebastian Conran Associates, he has worked on a variety of projects from consumer robotics through to furniture, homewares, and custom motorcycles. 

www.betadesignoffice.com

Nataly Nieves

Nataly Nieves is one of the innovation drivers of the UKI Innovation Network of Deutsche Bank. She leads the engagement activities within the Innovation Ecosystem including: Deutsche Bank colleagues, technology partners and the investor community. Nataly has a particular focus on the Corporate Bank and the Chief Risk Office, helping them solve real challenges through adopting new and emerging technology. She has been with Deutsche Bank since 2015 and worked on various digital projects across the Private and Commercial Banking division.  

www.db.com

Rob Ames

Rob Ames is Co-Founder and Creative Director of Triclops Studio, a fresh thinking, East London think tank specialising in Toy & Games concept design. Triclops also ‘Story World Build ‘ for both the Toy and Network Entertainments industry aiding them in creating synergised IP, stories & characters that can successfully translate on-screen as well as into product.

With a wealth of experience, Triclops prides itself on a straight forward approach coupled with a genuine passion for product and content in the worlds of toys, games, comics, movies & animation. Clients include – Hasbro, Mattel, LEGO, Disney, Tomy, BBC, CBeebies, Aardman to name a few.

http://www.triclopsstudio.com/

Samuel Mensah

Samuel Mensah is a London based Creative, whose experience spans from Branding to Art Direction, Digital Product, and Industrial Design. 

Mensah has used his educational foundation as a springboard for his career. He has created and been credited with crafting award-winning campaigns and products globally for clients such as Nike, Google and Virgin. 

His self-initiated work and bespoke typefaces have been featured on platforms such as Creative Review, Adobe.com, Abduzeedo, and DesignYouTrust to name a few.

Vicky Phillips

Vicky Phillips is the founder of Lightship Print Shop a surface pattern and illustration studio based on board a lightship in East London. The studio specialises in artwork for apparel, stationery and homewear and has worked with clients from around the world including American Eagle, Paperchase, Blue Mint, Peter Alexander and The Big Draw among others, with artwork appearing on pyjamas to wrapping paper, diaries to swimming trunks and even some giant wooden cubes installed in a carpark!

www.lightshipprintshop.com

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We are pleased to announce that the Design Ventura 2020 brief setter is artist and designer Yinka Ilori. Watch the brief video below:

Yinka Ilori is well known for his bold designs that use shape and colour to tell stories inspired by his British and Nigerian heritage. Yinka  studied Furniture and Product Design at London Metropolitan University. He started by upcycling furniture before moving on to bigger projects, installations and collaborations.

Recent projects include The Dulwich Picture Gallery Pavilion 2019: The Colour Palace, the Thessaly Road Bridge underpass Happy Street, 2019 (pictured above) and the Project Earth window display for Selfridges, London (pictured below).

Yinka works with a team of architects and designers out of a studio in Nortth West London. You can see Yinka’s top tips for students taking part in Design Ventura in the video below:

We are delighted that Yinka will be one of our expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea, at the Pitching Day in March 2021.

The post Meet the Design Ventura 2020 Brief Setter: Yinka Ilori appeared first on Design Ventura.

We are pleased to announce the awards for the International and Independent Category are:

THIRD PLACE
Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls, Hertfordshire
Four Treasures
A board game that helps children learn about geography.

SECOND PLACE
Wrekin College, Shropshire
Iso-Box
An isometric drawing aid shaped like a London telephone box that includes a ruler and a protractor.

FIRST PLACE
More House School, Surrey
Grip Spin 
A self-assemble fidget toy that attaches to the end of a pencil or pen.

Despite the current limitations caused by COVID-19, we still managed to celebrate each teams success by sending them their certificates and goody bags in the post.

Well done teams!

The post International and Independent Category Winners 2019 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Each team had a chance to present their product idea and prototypes to our panel of expert judges who were extremely impressed with the professionalism of the students’ three minute pitches.

The judges from left to right: Katie Greenyer, Duncan Sanders, Christoph Woermann, Morag Myerscough, and Joseph Halligan.

Lareena Hilton, Global Head of Brand Communications & CSR at Deutsche Bank, kicked off the event with a very warm welcome to Winchester House.

Alice Black, Director of the Design Museum, thanked everyone for coming and passed over to Ellen Ferguson who invited each school up to pitch.

The panel had a fantastic time meeting the students, watching their presentations and questioning them about their product ideas. The students were very well prepared and gave fantastic answers!

Whilst the judges were busy deliberating and having to make very difficult decisions choosing all the prize winners, the students took part in a fun design challenge, seeing who could create the tallest Jenga tower!

George Spencer Academy won the challenge with a very tall tower!

The day ended with the judges giving constructive feedback to all the teams. The winner will be announced in February when all the schools will return to the Design Museum for the Celebration Event.

All photos ©Richard Heald/Design Museum

The post Design Ventura Pitching Event 2019 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Katie Greenyer
Katie is Creative Talent & Network Director at Pentland Brands, she manages the creative direction of Red or Dead while leading a global design team that generates campaigns for some of the world’s best-loved sports, fashion and outdoor brands. Her role has seen her deliver award-winning workplace environments that inspire performance, creativity and collaboration in locations from London to Hong Kong.

Joseph Halligan
Joe is a founding member of Assemble, a multi-disciplinary collective. He has designed and delivered projects including much of the collective’s work in Liverpool, for which they were awarded the Turner Prize in 2015. Joe recently completed the design and delivery of a new gallery at the Wellcome Collection and he is currently working on the development of an artist led co-housing project in Hammersmith and an open access workshop at Churchill College, Cambridge. Joe has taught and lectured internationally at universities including Yale, Cambridge and the ETH, Zurich.  

Morag Myerscough
Morag is a London born designer and artist whose work is characterised by an engaging boldness, strong colour and high levels of positive energy. She creates structural installations and immersive spatial works that champion community and public interaction. Acclaimed projects include Temple of Agape, Southbank, 2014, Designer Maker User, Design Museum, 2016, Power Bridge, a permanent installation at Battersea Power Station, 2017, and Love at First Sight, a pavilion installation in Aberdeen, 2019. 

Duncan Sanders

Duncan is Head of Trading at the Design Museum, with retail, catering and publishing all within his portfolio. Having worked in commercial roles at multitude of leading cultural organisations – including Museum of London, British Library and Southbank Centre – Duncan has a wealth of experience in product and brand development.

Christoph Woermann

Christoph is Managing Director, Global Head of Marketing, Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank. Christoph has a passion for garden design and is an ardent supporter of the Design Ventura project and a seasoned member of the judging panel.

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