Brief Setter for 2023-24: Kangan Arora

We are excited to announce that the Design Ventura 2023-24 brief setter is Kangan Arora, a South London-based designer specialising in textiles, though she has designed everything from websites to chocolate packaging!

Kangan works with and is inspired by communities across the world, from her students and colleagues at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, to her fellow creatives and design experts with whom she staged an exhibition in Japan in 2020. Her favourite source of inspiration is the rainbow of colours, geometries, and pattern applications of the Indian visual vernacular.

While her patterns are often abstract, Kangan is a designer, so her work is rooted in the practical – she constantly collects and experiments with different pigments and print processes. With so much to draw on it’s no surprise that she has designed a huge range of products including soft furnishings, acoustic panels, and socks. She has also worked with a variety of brands and institutions including TATE, Heal’s, Floor_Story, and IKEA.

Two things are central to Kangan Arora’s work: colour and community. That’s why this year’s Design Ventura brief asks you to draw on one or both of these themes when designing your product for the competition. Watch the video below to find out more about Kangan’s work and the Design Ventura brief:

Even though Kangan’s work covers a huge range of product types, she always has a unique and identifiable personal style. We suggest that for your own project, you start by thinking about how colour and community are present in your own life – this will ensure that your ideas are grounded and original. From here, we encourage you to unleash your creativity. Seek out other designers who incorporate colour and community in their work. You might be surprised how many different ways these themes can be incorporated!

Don’t forget to think about all aspects of your product: how it looks, feels, and functions. You could take inspiration from Kangan Arora’s portfolio of packaging and branding designs for ideas on how to present your product as it deserves, in a way that will appeal to your chosen target market.

Kangan is a lecturer at Central Saint Martins, which is part of the University of London, so she knows how to help students get creative. Watch the video below for some of her top tips when producing your design, from idea generation to final pitch:

We are thrilled to welcome Kangan Arora to Design Ventura this year. As well as setting your brief, she will be one of our expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea at the Pitching Day in March 2024. We can’t wait to see your ideas!

Design Ventura 2022-23 Brief Setter: Selasi Setufe MBE

We are pleased to announce that the Design Ventura 2022-23 brief setter is artist and designer Selasi Setufe.

Selasi Setufe is an architect with an interest in exploring socially responsive approaches to design, architecture and placemaking. She is co- director of Black Females in Architecture, an organisation which advocates for diversity, race and gender equity in Architecture, Design & Construction industries.

You can find out more about her work and the Design Ventura brief, by watching the brief video below:

She currently works as senior architect and innovative sites manager at Be First this year, students are challenged to design a product for the Design Museum Shop, inspired by the theme of ‘Place’.

“I have a particular interest in the impact that the places around us have on influencing our societies and environments. As an Architect, I have the pleasure of positively contributing to shaping spaces we live, work and play in. I am really excited to see how thoughts about ‘Place’ in all its different meanings are explored by the students taking part in this year’s Design Ventura programme, and I can’t wait to see the products they come up with. The first time I considered a career in design was whilst I was at secondary school and I hope the Design Ventura experience will inspire a new generation of designers and entrepreneurs.” Selasi Setufe

Selasi is interested in exploring socially responsive approaches to design, architecture and placemaking, with particular focus on cultural and environmental issues. The outcome of her work is varied and comes in multiple forms.

Selasi along with fourteen other practices were invited to create a paper model to sit on top of the cases in the V&A’s Architecture Gallery. These new models sit in dialogue with those underneath, building on this history to project into the future.

You can watch Sealsi’s top tips for students taking part in Design Ventura competition in the video below:

We are delighted that Sealsi will be one of our expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea at the Pitching Day in March 2023.

Meet the Design Ventura 2021 Brief Setter – Yuri Suzuki

We are pleased to announce that the Design Ventura 2021-22 brief setter is artist and designer Yuri Suzuki.

Yuri Suzuki is a sound artist, designer and electronic musician. He is Partner at design firm Pentagram and works out of studios in London and Margate. His work ranges from small products to large scale installations. His practice uses sound and interaction to look at the relationship between people and their environments.

You can find out more about his work and the Design Ventura brief, by watching the brief video below:

You can also see Yuri’s most recent sound installation, Sonic Bloom, at Brown Hart Gardens in London until August 2022 (pictured below). Sonic Bloom is an interactive community sculpture with colourful horns that function as speaking tubes, through which members of the public can communicate with each other and listen to the sounds of the city.

Other recent projects include The Welcome Chorus, 2020 at Turner Contemporary and Sound in Mind, 2020 at the Design Museum. You can see a selection of his product design and other projects on his website.

You can watch Yuri’s top tips for students taking part in Design Ventura competition in the video below:

We are delighted that Yuri will be one of our expert judges, helping to choose this year’s winning idea at the Pitching Day in March 2022.

Meet the Design Ventura 2020 Brief Setter: Yinka Ilori

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.

Meet the 2019 Design Ventura Brief Setters – Assemble

To celebrate the tenth year of Design Ventura, we are pleased to announce that our Design Ventura 2019 brief setter is Turner Prize-winning design studio Assemble, a London-based collective working across architecture, design and art.

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.

Online Teacher CPD session video available now!

If you missed the teacher CPD in August and September, you can watch the recording of the online session.

Design Ventura 2017 online teacher CPD from Design Museum on Vimeo.

Design Ventura 2017 – Key dates

6 September – Design Ventura goes live, video brief is available
18 September – 20 October free workshops and visits to the new Design Museum in Kensington
15 November – Submission deadline for entries
24 November – Top 10 teams notified
8 December – Pitching event
February 2018 – Celebration Event
February – March – Exhibition of top ten entries at the Design Museum

You can find all these dates and more on the Tick list.

Design Ventura video brief now available!

Anna Bullus, Gumdrop Ltd introduces the 2017 Design Ventura Brief.

Design Ventura Brief 2017 from Design Museum on Vimeo.

Meet the 2017 Design Ventura brief setter

Anna Bullus of Gumdrop Ltd and my gumboots, is this year’s brief setter.

Anna left School to do a foundation course at Camberwell College of Art where she specialised in Three Dimensional Design and graduated with a Distinction. She went on to study Three Dimensional Design at the University of Brighton where her idea for the Gumdrop was first born. During her degree Anna specialised in plastics and material experimentation, which led to her developing an interest in recycling.

One day when walking home from University, Anna decided to pick up every piece of litter she could find, take it home and Google each piece to find out what happened to it once it became waste, and if there were other uses for each material. Inside an empty crisp packet was a lonely piece of chewing gum that soon became the brainchild for her Gumdrops.  When Anna Googled ‘chewing gum’, to look at who was recycling it and what it was made from, she could not find anyone or anything that re-used chewing gum. She quickly realised that chewing gum was everywhere, and was a major litter problem that was going unnoticed, and with that Anna decided to give gum a second life.

Anna found herself in her final year at Brighton in a Chemistry lab experimenting with different materials, temperatures, resins, you name it she tested it. After hundreds of experiments she came up with a mouldable material which could be used to manufacture a bin which would collect chewing gum and subsequently be recycled to make new bins, the Gumdrop bin was born. Anna breathed a huge sigh of relief knowing that she at last, had a product to use for her final year project, but little did she know this was going to become her career.

After leaving University with a First Class Honours Degree, Anna gained experience as a Product Designer with Hulger, and Case Furniture as a Junior Product Developer in London. At the same time Anna was showcasing her ‘gumdrop bin’ project worldwide, this generated a huge amount of demand so much so that Anna decided to leave Case Furniture to set up her own company, to tackle the global problem of chewing gum waste.

Anna needed to develop her material into a product that was commercially viable, so she approached the Polymers Department at the London Metropolitan University. Here, she spent three years developing her material from recycled chewing gum, now known as Gum-tec. Gum-tec can be used in existing manufacturing processes such as injection and blow moulding.

With her material ready and a new Gumdrop bin designed and produced, Anna launched the Gumdrops in 2010 with Legoland being one of the first sites to take them on. The Gumdrops have now travelled far and wide across the UK. Gumdrop Ltd has attracted some fantastic companies like BAA, Royal Mail, Amey, ISS, Westfield Shopping Centres and Wrigley’s. The Gumdrop Bins are proving to be a great success and reduced gum litter by up to 46% in the first 12 weeks of use.

It is not just the Gumdrop bin that has developed and grown. Gum-tec is now being used to make other products such as Gum-tec Gumboots, dog bowls, rulers, frisbees and sports cones. This range of products is set to expand and grow in the future.

Anna has gone on to be nominated and win many awards for her innovative ideas, including being nominated in 2010 by the Financial Times for a place in the ‘Top 50 Women in World Business Ranking,’ in the same year she was also placed in Management Today’s ’35 Women Under 35 to Change the Future’.  In 2011 she was selected as one of Kevin McCloud’s ‘Grand Designs Green Heroes’, and also selected as one of the ‘Top 20 Young Entrepreneurs’ by Start Your Own Business Magazine. In 2012 she won Tomorrow’s ‘Best Cleaning Product,’ was given a  ‘Homes & Gardens Eco Designer of the Year Award,’ and was also placed in Wired Magazine’s ‘Europe’s 100 Hottest Startups 2012.’

Anna aims to deliver innovation on a global scale and continues to pursue her goals by educating and inspiring the public to reduce chewing gum waste.

The future’s green with a drop of pink.

Working as a high performing team – some tips

A big part of your experience of Design Ventura is the opportunity to work like a professional design team. In this blog, I want to share some ideas about this to help you make the most out of this opportunity – and to set you all a challenge to be a really high performing team.

What is a high performing team?
Here’s a simple picture describing some of the features of a high performing team.

Clear sense of purpose:
Be clear on why the team exists and what you are there to achieve as well as how you are going to work together. In the team I am currently in, we have a motto or logo: One team, one dream. It’s a way of pulling us all together. Maybe create one for your team to help build that sense of common purpose?

Clear about roles:
You’ve been asked to pick roles in the team. What’s really important here is that everyone knows what their role is and that you all trust each other to get on with that role. It might be nice to share the roll of team leader role to give everyone the opportunity and experience of doing this.

Get the job done:
High performing teams keep going and help each other out.
This is about turning up on time, pulling your weight even when the going gets tough. You will have good times and bad times to work through.

Value differences:
This is my favourite part of being in a team – learning to work with other people. Be open to the skills others bring to the team and don’t be afraid to be yourself.

Final take away: Team Reflection Time
A couple of simple questions to use at the end of every working session together:

• What’s going well?
• What could we be better at?

Don’t let things go on for too long if it isn’t working well – it’s up to everyone on the team to take responsibility to say if something isn’t working or could be improved. Put the team first, invest your energy in making the team be the best it can be.

In the words of Steve Jobs, Apple’s extraordinary founder, “the journey really is the reward.” Make the most out of working with your team mates, take something away from every session you have, show up, contribute, share, be the best team mate you can be– and really enjoy it, something magical can really happen when you are part of a high performing team.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
– African proverb

Written by Siobhan McKavanagh, Organisation Design Specialist, Risk Division – Deutsche Bank

Designer Profile: Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby

For our first Designer Profile of 2015 we are looking at our great brief setters for this year Edward Barber & Jay Osgerby.

The Barber Osgerby partnership was formed while the pair were studying at university and they have been collaborating ever since. Their work shows how simplicity in design and materials can make for a winning product.

Their award-winning design for the Olympic Torch had to be both beautiful and practical. Not only is it the potent symbol of the Olympic Games, but it also had to be able to stay alight through all kinds of weather conditions.

Barber & Osgerby curated a Design Museum exhibition call ‘In the Making’ which halted the manufacture of familiar objects to make you stop and think about how they are made, what processed and materials go into making an object and also what waste is created.

You can also find Barber & Osgerby products in the Design Museum Shop, maybe your Design Ventura idea will on sale next to them.