Clare Moore
Clare is a Chartered Architect, with a wealth of experience delivering projects in public and private sectors of the industry. This is complimented by her extensive experience as an educator at UK Universities. Clare founded C3M Studio in 2009, a London based architectural practice that provides furniture installations, refurbishments, education and residential projects. Her conceptual approach is characterised by pealing back layers to reveal the original character of existing buildings, by utilising appropriate sustainable materials to creatively reuse and enhance original beauty.

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. 

Richard Brownlie-Marshall

Richard is a multidisciplinary designer who has created work for clients such as Pret A Manger, Zizzi and The Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the Head of Creative at Mindful Chef and has an eponymous line of lifestyle products. Richard’s multi-hyphenate career has seen him work with a diverse collection of brands and over an extensive range of mediums, which has no doubt contributed to his unique perspective in design.

Yelizaveta (Liza) Shinkarenko
Lisa is a UX designer working on Client Lifecycle Transformation and Client Facing Portal projects in Desutsche Bank, London. Prior to becoming a UX designer Lisa was working as a Project Manager and as a QA Automation engineer on various projects across the industry, which gave her a well-rounded understanding of the Software Development process and a critical role that an end user plays in it.
Lisa is passionate about the way art, design and science can bridge the gap between humans and machines, with a goal to create a bright and sustainable future.

The post Design Ventura Shortlisting Panel 2022-23 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Clare Moore
Clare is a Chartered Architect, with a wealth of experience delivering projects in public and private sectors of the industry. This is complimented by her extensive experience as an educator at UK Universities. Clare founded C3M Studio in 2009, a London based architectural practice that provides furniture installations, refurbishments, education and residential projects. Her conceptual approach is characterised by pealing back layers to reveal the original character of existing buildings, by utilising appropriate sustainable materials to creatively reuse and enhance original beauty.

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. 

Jodie Valery
Jodie Valery is a graphic designer at Formula E which is a championship seeing electric cars race around the world. Jodie enjoys working in entertainment/media areas, that also promote sustainability and storytelling through creativity, with her last job also being at BBC Studios. She has experience working with branding, editorial, event branding and campaigns, but when she is not working she loves to practise drawing, do personal design work and go to exhibitions. Design Ventura has been influential in her creativity interest and career as being one of the first winning teams and she finds it great to come back to volunteer with and be a part of the museum.

Sam Griffiths
Sam Griffiths is a designer and the founder of Griffics which has the aim of making the world a more playful place. He develops artwork, products, activities, workshops and projects to help make this happen. He’s interested in the potential of play and playfulness to unlock creativity and address social and environmental issues. He has a background in branding, working with large and small clients to deliver pragmatic, creative and impactful work. His work is largely collaborative, he believes in designing with people, not for them. He loves designing and facilitating workshops that help people embrace their own creativity.

Samuel Mensah
Samuel Mensah is an Award Winning multi-disciplinary Creative, with a focus on Design, Product & Brand. He provides holistic design solutions for branding with conceptual rigour and mastered aesthetic.

Yelizaveta (Liza) Shinkarenko
Liza is a UX designer working on Client Lifecycle Transformation and Client Facing Portal projects in Desutsche Bank, London. Prior to becoming a UX designer Liza was working as a Project Manager and as a QA Automation engineer on various projects across the industry, which gave her a well-rounded understanding of the Software Development process and a critical role that an end user plays in it.
Liza is passionate about the way art, design and science can bridge the gap between humans and machines, with a goal to create a bright and sustainable future.

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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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However, we should always be able to step away and look at our ideas through a different lens. Because when the pitching process starts, it is not what you or your team think about the product. It’s how the audience you are pitching to will perceive it that counts. Remember, it’s the first time they are going see it.

Be honest to yourself. And also, be aware of the people in the audience. try to understand them if you can. What have they done in the past, how do they approach their work. They need to be engaged, even entertained, while you are pitching. How are you going to engage and entertain them with your pitch?

There’s a question I always ask to myself when I have to present something new: Can I explain this idea in ten words or less? It’s a tough one, but it allows me to focus on communicating the most important things, without getting lost in irrelevant details.

Here is an example of my own work, where I was challenged to find ways to help raise funds for a charity called “Pathway” that helps homeless people get personalised medical attention when they are treated in a London Hospital.

This is the idea we had, in ten words: Up-cycle former homeless clothes to show transformational impact of healthcare.

So, when pitching your idea, keep that in mind: what ten words describes your product? Your audience might not be aware of all the work you put behind it but if the idea is relevant and catches their attention it will come alive and grow in the real world. Focus on that.

The post Industry Insights: Understanding the Pitching Process appeared first on Design Ventura.

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.

Valerie Charlton
Valerie’s interest in Human Behaviour led her to obtain a BSc in Psychology before going on to complete a Masters in Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in New York City.  She has worked in the product design field for over fifteen years, most recently as Design Director of Sebastian Conran Associates, a multidisciplinary London-based consultancy.

Roy Houston
Roy has been an active Design Ventura expert for several years, and by volunteering at workshops he provides his valuable business insight as the Head of Service Assurance Analytical Platforms at Deutsche Bank, along with his experience in the IT industry, Retail, Technology and Financial Services organisations. Roy enjoys seeing how participating Design Ventura schools are able to design, build and deliver innovative products to be sold in a business context.

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.

Harry Mitchell
Harry is an Associate Director at Sebastian Conran Associates, a London based industrial design consultancy that have a diverse portfolio ranging from homewares through to consumer robotics. After graduating from Northumbria University with a BA (Hons) in Three Dimension Design – Product and Furniture, Harry gained a particular interest in mechanical engineering, which he enjoys applying to live projects as well as at home in his workshop.

Clare Moore
Clare is a Chartered Architect, with a wealth of experience delivering projects in public and private sectors of the industry. This is complimented by her extensive experience as an educator at UK Universities. Clare founded C3M Studio in 2009, a London based architectural practice that provides furniture installations, refurbishments, education and residential projects. Her conceptual approach is characterised by pealing back layers to reveal the original character of existing buildings, by utilising appropriate sustainable materials to creatively reuse and enhance original beauty.

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.

Alex Woolley
Alex is one half of creative duo Common Curiosity, a multi-disciplinary design studio based in both London and Birmingham. He is an ideas driven designer, working across various design disciplines, sectors and scales – from global rebrands through to postage stamps. Curious by nature, Alex enjoys the marriage between creativity and craft, with a love for the pursuit of simplicity and using creativity as a problem solver.

The post Design Ventura Shortlisting Panel 2019 appeared first on Design Ventura.

Assemble’s mission is to realize buildings, enterprises, and organizations that support creativity, collaboration, and citizen participation. Their social focus and unique approach was recognised in the receipt of the 2015 Turner Prize – the UK’s foremost art award.

Paloma Strelitz, co-founder and partner of Assemble, launched the 10th year of Design Ventura with this year’s brief film:

Paloma studied architecture at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Art. You can see her top tips for tackling the Design Ventura brief below:

We are delighted that co-founder Jo Halligan will be representing Assemble as one of our expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea, at the Pitching Day in December.

The post Meet the 2019 Design Ventura Brief Setters – Assemble appeared first on Design Ventura.

Design Ventura brought an array of design activities and events to the festival to help inspire teachers.

There was a Design Ventura stall, which provided a one-stop shop for information about the project and sold last year’s winning product Active Snap. There was also a Design Ventura exhibition of the past winning products in the V&A Cafe.

On top of this, Design Ventura curated a number of talks about design and creativity. We hosted a panel discussion on ‘Why we need creativity now more than ever‘ led by Sevra Davis, Head of Learning at the Design Museum. The panel included artist and designer Helga Schmid, Global Head of Marketing at Deutsche Bank, Christoph Woermann and London based architects Chris Hildrey and Asif Khan, who had a lively and engaging debate on the topic.

Sebastian Conran delivered a fascinating keynote speech in the BBC Venue about his journey to becoming a designer, entitled ‘Design is not pretty, soft or fluffy‘.

This was all topped off by a Design CPD with Ellen Ferguson, who delivers the Teacher CPD events for Design Ventura. This hands-on workshop included object handling from the Design Museum’s handling collection.

Thank you to everyone who visited our stall and attended our talks and events as part of the Festival of Education, it was a very inspiring start to the summer!

The post Inspiring creativity at The Festival of Education appeared first on Design Ventura.

Hello, I’m Peta Miller

I have been volunteering for Design Ventura since it was launched in 2010 and thoroughly enjoy being part of such an inspirational project run by a team of really committed people.

After each workshop, you leave feeling completely enthused. It really is great fun helping the students develop their ideas. The teachers have told me that the students really appreciate having ‘real’ designers to show their ideas to and get feedback. One boy in the winning team the year before last, was so motivated by the competition and full of ideas, I’m sure he’ll end up being the next Steve Jobs! I spoke to his parents at the award ceremony and they couldn’t believe the transformation in his character since taking part in the competition, they said he now points out to them objects that could be improved through design wherever they go!

I would highly recommend fellow designers, of all disciplines, getting involved, the amount of time you put in is totally up to you, and you get the satisfaction of knowing that you might have helped inspire future generations of designers.

Register to become a Design Ventura expert

See what Paul Jenkins from Triple Double has to say about volunteering for Design Ventura.

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