Although we can’t offer them quite all the perks of the state school category (which is specifically intended to lower barriers of access to hands-on design learning), we appreciate everyone of our independent and international – or “I&I” – Design Ventura participants. Just like the main state schools category, we shortlist and pick a winner every year, and make sure to celebrate our top nominees with a celebration.

This year’s top 3 all happened to be UK-based, so we were able to welcome them to the Design Museum in person on Wednesday for an I&I Prize Day. After breaking the ice with some tea and biscuits, we dove straight into the main activity: a dynamic graphic design workshop focused on creating protest posters.

Led by Joe – one of our long-time facilitators across not just Design Ventura but also the general museum Schools programme and holiday Design Camps – students first considered graphic design in its appearances across book covers, leaflets, packaging, and signage. Using all they had learned and discussed, and drawing additional inspiration from Shepard Fairey’s iconic HOPE poster created for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign – which holds a special place in the Design Museum’s own collection! – they created their very own protest posters.

Each student chose their own topic, ranging from preventing the polar ice caps melting to improving access to books and reading. Although an unexpected fire alarm added an impromptu adventure to our day, students and teachers alike took it all in good stride and in the end it only added to the day’s sense of camaraderie. We couldn’t have asked for a more easygoing set of young designers.

Following the workshop and peer presentations, we moved into the two moments everyone was waiting for: lunch and the awards ceremony.

The Design Museum’s Head of Learning, Stella Fong, joined us to announce the winners…

• Highly commended: most fun idea!
  Kew House School with Chore Challengers.
• Highly commended: best presentation and branding
  Halcyon London International School with the MicroBloom Greenhouse by Little Leaf Labs.
• Overall winner
  The King’s School with Scrap’n’Save.

But the fun didn’t end there. All teams headed upstairs to our newly opened, free Design Researchers in Residence display, where they were personally welcomed by one of our current residents, Christie Swallow. Christie was also one of our Speed Networkers for the wider Celebration Event, and we and all our visiting students just love their warmth and sheer enthusiasm for learning and design – and parakeets.

Students then visited the rest of our free displays featuring the work of multidisciplinary artist and designer Bethan Laura Wood and this year’s Saltzman Prize winner, rounding out their museum experience with exposure to contemporary design practice, before the day concluded with our current exhibition, Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style – just the thing to get everyone excited for the summer holidays and warming temperatures here in England.

Watching these young designers engaging with different facets of design as they moved through the museum has reinforced why Design Ventura continues to be such a vital programme, and their curiosity and creativity as always reminds us of the reach and impact of design education. We’re grateful to all of our participants, from every corner of the UK and beyond, for their participation this year.

A huge congratulations to all three finalist teams for their outstanding work, and to the teachers who continue to nurture the next generation of design thinkers. Until next time!

The Design Ventura team.

The post International & Independent Category Prize Day: Design Ventura 2024-25 appeared first on Design Ventura.

On Wednesday 23 April 2025, welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools who submitted this year to the Design Museum for a day of celebration. We also unveiled the Design Ventura 2024-25 display on the mezzanine – make sure you come and visit while it’s up.

Our students kicked off the day by exploring our current exhibitions, The World of Tim Burton and Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style, to give them a chance to get to know each other and settle in to the museum. We followed this with our favourite activity every Celebration Day: Design Speed Networking. Students met professionals from all across the design and creative industries and varying career paths – find out more about them below.

Speed networking mentors

Anna Bullus, founder of Gumdrop Ltd, has a knack for sustainable problem-solving with popular appeal. Her bright pink Gumdrop bins are made from Gum-tec®, a groundbreaking circular-system material recycled from the chewing gum the bins collect. Legoland Windsor were one of the first to sign up, followed by others including Mars, Royal Mail, various local councils and us – our 2017 winner was made entirely from Gum-tec®!

Christie Swallow, is an artist, researcher, and designer who crafts new stories from old ideas. Through their practice they engage with topics of ecology, technoscience and heterodoxy through sound, installation, textiles, collaborative drawing, and archival research. Currently they’re a Design Researcher in Residence at the Design Museum, working on a project revolving around the urban parakeet and more-than-human music!

Cordula Kastner is passionate about fostering collaboration and emerging talent across the creative sector. She’s a culture chameleon who’s worked with institutions, artists, festivals, companies and more across events, PR and marketing, curation, and community engagement. Currently she works as the Resident Programme Coordinator at Somerset House, alongside continuing to engage with smaller institutions and creatives across Austria and the UK.

Federico Fasce is a cross-disciplinary researcher, game designer and lecturer, who’s fascinated by why and how humans play and create meaning and feeling in game spaces. His work includes Forest Daydream, set to a soundscape which blends familiar game bloops and bleeps with field recordings from the Amazonas home of the indigenous Wampí people; and Songbird, which uses recordings from the now-extinct ʻōʻō bird.

Hani Salih is a researcher, writer, and curator who connects the dots across disciplines to challenge conventional division, drawing on naturally occurring complexity to model the positive power of collective alliances. Hani’s studies at the London School of Economics combined with his architectural foundation in critical spatial thinking form the foundation for his fascination with the systems and infrastructures that shape our lives across natural, built, and social environments.

Jung Hyun Lee is a London-based design strategist with over 10 years of experience in brand strategy, design innovation, creative direction. She has worked with global brands including LG, Audi, and John Lewis, shaping insight-led, data-driven campaigns that connect design with business impact. Jung also supports Research Cluster 5 of the Architectural Design MArch (B-Pro) at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Margherita Dosi Delfini is Assistant Curator at the Design Museum, currently working on the forthcoming show ‘More than Human’ following her first exhibition at the museum, dedicated to Italian postwar designer Enzo Mari. Prior to joining the Design Museum, Margherita had already worked for the Royal College of Art’s 2023 Postgraduate Show, contemporary arts patron and collector Nicoletta Fiorucci, the Barbican Art Gallery, and V.O Curations.

Milagros Pérez is Senior Learning Partnerships Manager at the Design Museum, where she runs the Design Museum Academy and oversees learning partnerships, working closely with designers and facilitators from across the industry to produce practical learning programmes. Mila first trained as an architect before continuing her studies in museums and architectural history. Through her work, she seeks to bring people closer to all forms of design and culture.

Naomi Zaragoza is Assistant Curator of Public Programming at the Design Museum. She has a particular interest in the restorative and radical possibilities of design, public practice and community collaboration, and she’s also a trained horticulturalist! Over the last year she’s combined all of these in one by becoming a driving force behind our design and horticulture project ‘Growing Together’.

Winners, commendations, and runners-up

The Design Museum’s Director of Audiences, Josephine Chanter, welcomed all the schools and guests to the museum, followed by CEO and Director Tim Marlow and Christoph Woermann, Chief Marketing Officer of Corporate Bank Marketing at Deutsche Bank. And then, finally, it was the moment everyone was waiting for – the awards announcement!

Outstanding finalists:

St Clement Danes School with Flip It

Outwood Academy Haydock with Sprout Cards

Hinchingbrooke School with Recyclosketch

Commendation for most inclusive design:

Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School with Design!

Commendation for good design process:

Ravens Wood Boys School with Passive Speaker

Commendation for best presentation:

Haggerston School with Motivational Monkey

Commendation for most market ready product:

Outwood Academy Haydock with Sprout Cards

Third place:

Beechen Cliff School with The Design Odyssey

Second place:

Beaminster School with Nature’s Palette

First place:

Cambourne Village College with Loopy Loom – you’ll be seeing more of this one as we move into development and production ready for retail in the Design Museum Shop this winter!

Following the award ceremony, we unveiled our mezzanine display of all student-made prototypes from the top ten teams this year and capped the day off with everyone running downstairs to see their hard work on exhibition. They’ll stay there on display until mid-June – find out more about visiting here.

A massive thank you to all who attended this very special event celebrating the achievements of these finalists, to our various judges over the course of this process, to our Design Museum workshop facilitators, and as always thank you most of all – and well done – to the students and to the teachers who continue to make Design Ventura so special.

All photos © Richard Heald Photography / the Design Museum

The post Celebration Event: Design Ventura 2024-25 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Shortlisting judges

Joshua Armitage
Alongside being a practicing artist, Josh works as an associate lecturer in illustration at Goldsmiths University. Working primarily in drawing and painting from his South London studio, Josh explores how architecture and place intertwine with spirituality, memory, and emotion. Teaching is an integral part of his practice, expanding beyond working within institutions to the public realm.

Malay Nagda
An award-winning designer whose diverse portfolio spans across products including peer-to-peer payment system, an intuitive trading platform, and an online market place, Malay now heads the design team at a major financial institution. He’s been a mentor for our Speed Networking events in the past – shown in action here! – and beyond design, he finds artistic expression in the intricate details of origami models.

Hani Salih
Hani aims to bridge gaps between different contexts through his research, curation, writing and programming, by underpinning the importance of collective alliances to bring about positive social change. His interests in policy innovation, health and wellbeing, placemaking, and systems and infrastructure are informed by his background in architecture.

Juliana Caviedes Tello
Juliana came to London from Bogotá, ColColombia to study Performance Design & Practice at Central Saint Martins. She has since worked across theatre and screen – including The Nevers, Heartstopper, and the Fast & Furious franchise – and even the circus (the wardrobe department of Cirque du Soleil’s touring ‘Circus 1903’)!

After much debate – taking a little longer than we expected! – the final top ten state school entries and top three schools in the International and Independent Category have indeed been selected! You can find the full shortlist below, but first we’ll cover what’s next.

What happens next?

All schools who have submitted an entry for Design Ventura should by now have received feedback from our judges – please let us know if this is not the case. You will also be sent participation certificates for all of your students by post at a later date.

The shortlisted schools have been contacted with further details about the Pitching event, taking place Tuesday 25 March, and the final winner will be announced at a Celebration Day taking place at the Design Museum in April.

Shortlisted entries – state schools (alphabetical order)

Beaminster School – Nature’s Palette
A fun, multilingual, recyclable stencil set which aims to connect children to the natural world and encourage creativity through mixing and matching tree species throughout the seasons.

Beechen Cliff School – The Design Odyssey
A product which inspires users to learn from design history to change today’s world, by undertaking 100 daily challenges drawing on real world issues such as the climate crisis.

Cambourne Village College – Loopy Loom
A family-friendly weaving tool that transforms old clothing into new household items, combating fast fashion waste while creating quality time to make memories – and material – together while eradicating waste.

Haggerston School – Motivational Monkey
A task management system for families. Complete challenges so your ‘motivational monkey’ can climb its tree! Tasks/chores/challenges can be written in dry-erase pen to evolve with your family’s needs as children grow.

Hinchingbrooke School – Recyclosketch
A sustainable drawing tool made from recycled bottles. It transforms waste into a fun, educational souvenir, by challenging students to practice isometric sketching during or after their visit to the Design Museum.

John Hampden Grammar School – Climate Cards
An educational card game that teaches young people about the climate crisis, aiming to create an engaging learning experience while encouraging environmental responsibility.

Outwood Academy Haydock – Sprout Cards
Biodegradable postcards made from recycled, all-natural seed paper. Simply write, send, plant, and enjoy the magic of growing memories. Choose Sprout Cards for a greener way to connect and plant a message that grows with time!

Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School – Design!
Challenge stereotypes by exploring diverse designers across different eras, backgrounds, and identities through this card game similar to Snap! It aims to be an engaging, reusable learning resource for families and schools alike, and a souvenir of the Design Museum.

Ravens Wood Boys School – Passive Speaker
An all-analogue phone amplifier. Its directional sound design amplifies without disturbing those around you, and its hard, recycled plastic material combinines environmental responsibility with practical functionality.

St Clement Danes School – Flip It
Portable cutlery depicting different endangered animals when opened or closed. Eat your packed lunch in style, while learning about how and why you should support endangered wildlife!

Shortlisted entries – international and independent schools (alphabetical order)

Halcyon London International School – MicroBloom Greenhouse

A mini-greenhouse which transforms conventional farming into a sustainable, space-efficient model on a tiny scale – isn’t that where everything needs to start? Plant microgreens and create a green garden in your home.

Kew House School – Chore Challengers

An interactive card game designed to help engage young people in chores around the house. Every day there is a new chore to prioritise, with friendly monster characters to help you stay motivated.

The King’s School Canterbury – Scrap’n’Save

A playful but informative card game which aims to educate the whole family on correct waste disposal and recycling.

The post Design Ventura 2024-25: this year’s shortlist (and our shortlisting judges) appeared first on Design Ventura.

Remember…

Submitting teams should contain up to 6 students who may come from Years 9, 10, and/or 11.

We can only accept one main competition entry per school. If you have lots of students participating in the project and can’t decide whose to submit, we suggest running an in-school Pitching Day and having staff and/or students vote on their favourite product pitch to enter on behalf of the school.

Why should you submit?

• All participating students – not just those on the submitting team – will receive certificates of participation for completing the project.
• All submitting teams will receive specific, constructive feedback from our expert panel of judges, regardless of whether they are shortlisted or not.
• Incomplete entries will still receive feedback on what was turned in, so long as student and teacher evaluation forms are filled in.
• Shortlisted teams will join us for two days of fun, industry insights, and getting to meet their fellow young designers: the Pitching Day at Deutsche Bank’s London headquarters and the Celebration Event at the Design Museum.
• The winning team will work with a professional designer/design studio to develop and manufacture their product for sale in the real-life Design Museum Shop, with all proceeds going to the students’ chosen charity.

A complete entry must include:

• 3 x A3 sheets detailing your design process and final product (see tips on this below). If you submit more than 3 sheets, we will need to ask you to re-submit a shortened version and may not be able to accept your submission.
• Teacher evaluation form completed by teacher(s) running the project.
• Student evaluation forms completed by all participating students (not just the team who submit).
• Optional: budget template sheet, filled in and saved as a PDF. Even if you don’t submit this, it can help your students to better understand costing and ensure their product plan is realistic.
• Once you have all of the above, you are ready to fill in and submit your completed online form as detailed below.

We will not be able to accept your submission for consideration until you have completed the online form including A3 submission sheets and filled in both the teacher and student evaluations.

Completing your online entry form

1. Make sure that you’re logged in to your Design Ventura account. If you’ve forgotten your password, you can reset it here or email us. If you’re unsure of your login details or having any other issues, get in touch with us ventura@designmuseum.org.
2. The submitting student team should work with you to fill in the form, or give you the necessary information in advance: in this case we recommend that you ask them to fill in this practice entry form and give you details of cost price, retail price, and profit per product in advance.
3. Click on ‘Submit your entry’ on the Design Ventura website homepage, or via this link. Fill in all necessary fields using the information provided by your students.
4. Upload your document(s) (3xA3 sheets and optional budget sheet) via the link at the bottom of the form. Please ensure your school’s name is included in each file name.
5. Once you’re happy, click ‘Submit your entry’ at the bottom right! You should receive an automated email confirming submission, and we’ll be in touch a little later too, but if you’re worried it didn’t work please do email ventura@designmuseum.org to check in. Once you have submitted your entry you will not be able to change it, so check it carefully.

Further information: A3 submission sheets

Your three A3 submission sheets constitute the core of your submission and must be able to stand alone. We love seeing any additional videos, budget sheet, etc. but these cannot make up for deficiencies in the core submission sheets in the judging process.

They can be hand-drawn and scanned, created digitally, or some combination. They must not be more than 3 pages, or we may need to reject your submission! We advise that you follow this structure:

• Research and initial ideas. This could include moodboards and initial mind-maps, preliminary sketches, audience analysis or research, or existing product research.
• Idea development and refinement. This could include iterative prototypes*, CAD or simple 3D modelling with paper/clay, test user feedback, or SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).
• Final design. This should summarise and clearly communicate what your design is and how it meets the original Design Ventura brief. We recommend that you include detailed annotated images and/or photographs, and you may include a link to a video of the prototype in use if you wish.

* We love to see evidence of prototyping/modelling, so please do include photos of any part or whole prototypes made regardless of quality – remember that unsuccessful prototypes are part of the iterative design process!

Find examples of past A3 submission sheets on our Project Guide: Submitting & Finishing Up page.

File formats: PDF (preferably all three A3 sheets in one file) or JPEG. Maximum file size 12MB.

Useful links

What happens after you submit?

We’ll meet with our panel of expert judges to shortlist your submissions over the following week after submission, and will notify all shortlisted schools by 3 March, to be publicly announced 7 March. All submitting teams will receive feedback from our judges, whether you’re shortlisted or not!

If your school is shortlisted, we’ll get in touch with further information on the Pitching and Celebration Days. We aim to cover all expenses that may make it difficult for your students to be able to attend either day in person, so please don’t let potential cost deter you from entering the competition – we want to lower barriers to enjoying and excelling in design.

The post Finishing up: How to complete your Design Ventura submission appeared first on Design Ventura.

We hope you’re all back into the groove of things after half-term. We’re just finding time now to tell you about our last teacher CPD, which took place in-person at the Design Museum on Friday 1 November. First of all, thank you so much to everyone who came, choosing to spend a half-day of their holiday with us! We talked about how we can better embed sustainability in both design and teaching – a vital, critical, hopeful conversation which we found really valuable and hope you did too.

We were joined by Joseph from A New Field, creators of sustainable craft kits made and packaged using biodegradable or otherwise more sustainable materials and processes. You can see all the materials they use in their kits here, along with several manufacturers who may provide a good starting point for this year’s student teams. Their craft kits ask the user to source some of the raw materials themselves, by going out and foraging for pine needles before chopping and mixing them together with the provided natural ingredients. The result is a mouldable, bakeable putty.

We’ve actually had several Design Ventura teams over the years include an activity or ‘DIY’ component like this in their submitted product designs. It’s a great way of potentially making your product stand out by being more sustainable and customisable. However, it can be tricky to strike a balance between engaging and satisfying your user.

A New Field’s way of striking this balance might help inspire your own students if they’re thinking of making a product with any ‘activity’ component. Most materials are provided in the kit, with one carefully chosen component – importantly one which is fun, not too arduous or inaccessible – given to the user. Information is provided on how to go about obtaining this component both in the kits and in the ‘Foraging’ section of their website FAQ, so the user doesn’t feel abandoned! All this helps ensure that the ‘DIY’ component is a positive part of the product offer rather than making it a chore.

After hearing from Joseph about how A New Field got started – and having a go at making our own craft kits! – we had a whistle-stop tour of the museum’s second-floor public display Tomorrow’s Wardrobe. This display looks at sustainability innovations at all levels of the fashion and textile industries in the UK. It shows how sustainability can be embedded in design at every stage of the product life-cycle: raw materials and manufacturing, supply chain and retail, usage and maintenance of the product, and end-of-life or disposal. Name brands, grassroots manufacturers, and independent designers are featured including Ahluwalia, Phoebe English, Ponda, Ranra, Salomon, Stella McCartney, and Vivobarefoot.

You can find out more about Tomorrow’s Wardrobe on the Future Observatory website – and there will be teacher notes for it up on the Design Museum website very soon – but we’d especially like to highlight a special commission made for this exhibition which we feel could be a useful teaching tool. The Garment Lifecycle Map is an online resource which can be used by anyone anywhere in the world, on both desktop and mobile devices. Just pick a garment type, then click through the segments to find out more about the different stages of its life-cycle.

You can find some more useful links to handy resources including activities, videos, and more on sustainability and sustainable design here.

If you’d like to join us for events like this in future, remember that the best way to stay up-to-date is by signing up for our newsletter and following us on our social media: we’re @Design_Ventura on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter/X.

All photos © Richard Heald Photography / the Design Museum

The post What we got up to over half-term: Sustainability CPD at the Design Museum appeared first on Design Ventura.

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

The post Design Ventura: All Past Winning Products appeared first on Design Ventura.

The Design Ventura 2023-24 winners are The Piggott School with their design Colour Countdown, a game inspired by I Spy, but based around colours. Race the clock and engage with the environment around you.

The A3 design sheets submitted to the competition show how the students came up with their idea. They have a clear and consistant brand for their product which they have used throughout the sheets. Each sheet also clearly shows a different step in their process; what there idea is and who it is for, prototyping and testing the product and final design.

The team competed against over 16,000 students from 310 schools across the UK. With their entry, the Piggott School earned a place in the top 10 shortlisted schools. As one of the shortlisted schools, they were invited to pitch their design idea to a panel of judges on in March 2024. After much deliberation, the judges decided they should be the winners of Design Ventura 2023-24. You can watch this video to find out more about what happens at pitching day.

The winning team were awarded with the Design Ventura trophy at the Celebration Event. All top ten shortlisted products are exhibited at the Design Ventura exhibition at the Design Museum.

Following the Celebration Event, the student team worked with design agency Beta Design Office to develop their Design Ventura 2023-24 winning product. The first product development meeting with the designers took place at the designers studio in London.

The winning product is set to be launched in January 2025.

The post DV2023-24 Winning Product- Colour Countdown appeared first on Design Ventura.

Webinar 1: Research and the Design Museum Shop

In the first webinar of the series we heard from Emma Thomas, Senior Commercial Manager at the Design Museum Shop. In addition there are activities which students can follow along with to help them in their research phase.

Webinar 2: Generating ideas and testing

For our second webinar we heard from designer and maker, Max Male who is the inventor of Snapkits. Also there are activities to help students generate ideas when they are stuck.

Webinar 3: Materials and Sustainability

For our third webinar we heard from Joseph Curle from A New Field on their work and working with sustainable processes.

Webinar 4: Branding and Presenting Ideas

For our fourth and final webinar of the year we heard from Heidi El-Kholy from Salt and Sister Studio.

The post DV2024-25 Webinars appeared first on Design Ventura.

Notpla is an alternative to plastic made from seaweed and plants, it is completely natural and entirely biodegradable. Students are asked to be inspired by the theme: Change to design a product to improve everyday life for a specified target user group.

There journey started with the the Ooho, an edible water bubble designed by Co-Founders Rodrigo García González and Pierre Paslier at London’s Imperial College in 2013. The pair began by making each one by hand in their student kitchen, continuously testing new formulations to see if their idea had any chance of success. The name Ooho was quickly born from the unanimous reaction of people’s experience of these edible liquid balls – “Oohooo!”.

Notpla has a series of products which are solutions to single waste plastic! Some of there products offer plastic-free solutions to single use takeaway boxes and food sachets. By utilising the technology they had developed for the Ooho, they could apply this as a natural coating barrier which replaces all that plastic.

Watch the video below for some top tips when producing your design, from idea generation to final pitch:

We are thrilled to welcome Notpla to Design Ventura this year. As well as setting your brief setter, they will join us as expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea at the Pitching Day in March 2025. We can’t wait to see your ideas!

The post Design Ventura 2024-25 Brief Setter: Notpla appeared first on Design Ventura.

On Thursday 25 April 2024, welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools who submitted this year to the Design Museum for a day of celebration. We also unveiled the Design Ventura 2023-24 display on the mezzanine – make sure you come and visit while it’s up.

Elysia Thorpe, Programme Manager for Design Ventura, kicked us off by inviting our industry insights speakers – Laura Lebeau, industrial designer at Map Project Office, and Neil Onions, founding director of Beyond the Box – to join her onstage and offer our student teams some guidance and encouragement drawn from their own experiences in the design industry. Students and teachers had the opportunity to ask Laura and Neil questions, before everyone took a break for some soft drinks, tea, and cake!

Next up, student teams were mixed together to take part in Sustainable Design workshops run by our expert Design Museum workshop facilitators, Anna Fearon and Cathy Meese. Sustainable Design workshops are available to book as part of our year-round schools offering and draw on a handling collection unique to the Design Museum, including materials displayed in our bestselling Waste Age: What can design do? exhibition.

Everyone took a break for lunch and explored the exhibitions, catching SKATEBOARD in its last weeks before closing as well as Enzo Mari, which opened the month before. After this came a Design Ventura favourite, speed networking. Students met professionals from all across the design and creative industries and varying career paths – find out more about them below.

Speed networking mentors

Avni Patel. Programme Manager for Young People at the Design Museum as well as Project Manager at Design Can.

Callie Tedder-Hares. Founding partner and Creative Director at Volume Creative and its bespoke waste solutions start-up, Spared.

Eliza Collin. MA Material Futures Grad and current Design Researcher in Residence 2023-24 with Future Observatory at the Design Museum.

Isabel Lea, former Design Researcher in Residence 2022-23 with Future Observatory. Works as a designer, creative director, and socio-cultural researcher.

Joel Phillimore. In-house designer at Alive and Kicking alongside his freelance work as a digital creative.

Josh Armitage. Artist, aiming to merge sensory experiences with diverse drawing and painting techniques, and lecturer.

Larry Botchway, co-founder of the POoR Collective. Trained as an architect, also works as a tutor and engagement specialist.

Malay Nagda. Head of UX/UI for Risk and Compliance at Deutsche Bank, with 15 years of experience in  UX and design.

Sheana Yu. Social entrepreneur, mentor, and founder of Aergo Health.

Taran Wilkhu. Photographer with a particular focus on exploring the interaction between people and space in the built environment.

In the evening, the Design Museum opened its doors to the shortlisted school teams’ family and friends as well as Deutsche Bank employees, more design industry experts, the museum’s Learning team past and present, and other special VIP guests to celebrate the success of another year of Design Ventura.

The Awards

The Design Museum’s Director of Audiences, Josephine Chanter, welcomed all the schools and guests to the museum, followed by CEO and Director Tim Marlow and Christoph Woermann, Chief Marketing Officer of Corporate Bank Marketing at Deutsche Bank.

We were then joined by our judges from the Design Ventura Pitching Day in March, who took it in turn to announce the Design Ventura awards. This included Christoph as well as the Design Museum’s Senior Buying Manager Preena Patel; designer and entrepreneur Sebastian Conran; and of course our brief-setter for the year, textile and print designer Kangan Arora.

Outstanding Finalists
St Joseph’s Catholic High School with Emergency Cache
Dover Grammar School for Girls with OUTFITY
Comberton Village College with the Creative Colour Box

Commendation for packaging and visuals
Ferndown Upper School with Bouncy Buddies

Commendation for ingenuity of design
Manor CE Academy with S-C-R-A-P

Commendation for best presentation

Heathcote School with the Study Buddy

Commendation for most market-ready product
Christ the King Voluntary Catholic Academy with Road to Go

Third Place
Haggerston School with their Braille Calendar

Second Place
Upper Shirley High School with Dish of the Day

First Place
Piggott School with Colour Countdown – you’ll be seeing more of this one as we move into development and production ready for retail in the Design Museum Shop this winter!

Following the award ceremony, we unveiled our mezzanine display of all student-made prototypes from the top ten teams this year, alongside last year’s winning product Stack It! by The Piggott School (a different team of students, don’t worry!) as sold in the Design Museum Shop right now. The exhibition will run from until late June 2024 – find out more about visiting here.

A massive thank you to all judges and guests for attending for this very special event celebrating the achievements of the Design Ventura 2023-24 finalists, and as always thank you and well done to the students and to the teachers who continue to make Design Ventura special year after year.

All photos © Richard Heald Photography / the Design Museum

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