Design Ventura Shortlist 2016

Congratulations and thank you to all Design Ventura schools that have completed the project by submitting an entry and participating in the project’s evaluation.

Our panel of shortlisting judges have selected the top entries from the 240 schools who registered to take part, the shortlisted schools will be invited to pitch their idea to a panel of judges here at the new Design Museum in mid December.

All schools that have submitted an entry will receive participation certificates in the post. The shortlisted schools will be contacted separately by email and letter with details of the pitching event.

DESIGN VENTURA SHORTLIST 2016

The Design Ventura top ten shortlisted schools for 2016 are…..
(in alphabetical order)

Alexandra Park School, London

Grow up
A flat packed plant holder that encourages the reuse of containers.

Chancellors School, Hertfordshire

Light up your life
A DIY lamp kit with bendy legs to adapt to many terrains and uses.

Dame Alice Owens School, Hertfordshire

Forest Fits
A unique set of seasonal themed coasters which fit together to create new shapes.

Endon High School, Staffordshire

Skyline Solvers
A tactile, changeable puzzle with images of London’s most popular landmarks.

Harrogate Grammar School, Harrogate

Aqua Hook
A water bottle hook that can be clipped to any loop outside of a bag to carry a bottle.

Invicta Grammar, Maidstone

Eazy Squeezy
A device that can help you to make a cup of tea safely and without mess.

Reepham High School & College, Norfolk

Bluprint
An interactive toy with pop out shapes that can be combined in different ways to create imaginative, fun characters.

St Marylebone School, London

Geompot
A biodegradable plant pot which changes colour when moist to reveal an image inspired by the Design Museum and to indicate when you need to water the plant.

St Olave’s Grammar School, Kent

Marble blocks
A puzzle game which fits together to make a course for a marble to run through.

Woking High School, Surrey

Shift
A colour changing t-shirt to encourage young people to embrace each person’s individuality.

INDEPENDENT AND OVERSEAS SCHOOLS

Schools in this category will be contacted separately.
The shortlist for this category is…..
(in alphabetical order)

Chigwell School, Essex

Shadow stories
A bedtime story aid that allows a scene or character to be projected onto a wall or ceiling with the use of a light or torch.

Mill Hill School Foundation, London

Flip Switch
A product that allows children to expand their imagination by creating scenarios for their characters in iconic landmarks backdrops.

Royal Grammar School, Newcastle

Kit Control
A visual checklist enabling the user to physically and mentally check off items of sporting clothing as they pack their sports bag.

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

Photographing your product or prototype

As you begin to prepare your Design Sheets for entry to the Design Ventura competition, you will invariably be thinking about how you are going to present your ideas visually. Drawings work really well to show your design concept, and diagrams and technical illustrations to accompany your written explanations will show exactly how your product works.

A prototype/mock up of your product is a great way of showing our judges how your design will work and how it will look, so please make sure you include photos of these prototypes if you can. Here are some tips for taking a great product photo:

Natural Light
Set up a table near a window for your photoshoot – sun diffused through cloudy skies or a white sheet makes an excellent setting for a product photo. Really bright direct sunlight or a camera flash create strong dark shadows and make products look less attractive.

Background
Use a big piece of paper or a plain colour piece of cloth as your background to make your product really stand out. To create a seamless sweeping backdrop, stick your piece of paper to the wall and drape it over the table in front and then place your product on top.

Learn how to create a seamless backdrop in this tutorial from Fstoppers.

Tripod
Set your camera or phone up on a tripod to make sure the image won’t be blurry. If you don’t have a tripod, improvise! Find a place to rest your camera and use the timer setting to make sure the photo isn’t affected by shaky hands. Sometimes, even a steady hand can create a blurry photo, so find away to rest your camera securely on the table for the optimum shot.

Perspective
To really help the Design Ventura judges understand your design, it is a good idea to take photos of your product from a couple of angles. If it opens, show it open and closed. If it has a great design on the other side, make sure to take a photo of that.

Photos are a great way of telling your products story – Globe Academy’s Design Ventura entry for a foldable plate, Dish Dash, used photographs to help explain how the product worked.

Pupils present ideas at Mill Hill School

On Friday 16th September our Year 10 pupils presented their ideas to their peers in lesson time.

Pupils were given two minutes to present and explain their final design using the official ‘Ventura’ judging criteria.
All the pupils did extremely well and some interesting ideas for the them ‘Change’ were observed.
Next week we decide on the four pupils (from 32 in total) who will be chosen to participate in the comp.
All pupils are very excited to be taking part in the challenge and will receive an internal certificate of participation.
Attached are some photos of the presentation that took place and some of the blank challenge pack.

Chris Mckay (Mill Hill School)

Tips for effective communication

To be able to communicate effectively and engage your audience can be a challenging task and requires practice. Even politicians and public figures have practised speaking many times to develop this skill. The more you practice in front of a trial audience and ask for feedback the better you will be on the day of your presentation.

From my own experience, speaking in front of an audience can be daunting. People pay as much attention to what you say as to how you say it.. So it is just as important to work on the way you deliver your message as the content.

The key components of effective communication are content, structure and delivery.

Content
Ask yourself what you expect the audience to take away after your presentation and do not assume that your audience has previous knowledge about what you are going to talk about.

Concise and simple content is more digestible than when it’s lengthy and detailed. Think about 3-5 main bullet points or headlines that best summarise your content.

Structure
To structure your presentation it would be useful to ask yourself the below questions:

• Who is your audience?
• What is the problem?
• What is your solution/idea?
• What is your product?
• What are the key features and how do they solve the problem?
• Key takeaways

Delivery
Your presentation should be engaging to the audience – one person reading from a powerpoint is not very memorable. Some ways to make your presentation more engaging could be by asking questions, telling a personal story they can relate to or using puzzles and analogies.

Body language, eye contact and tone of voice can also influence the impact of your message.Try using your arms when emphasising a strong point or modulate your voice.

Planning ahead and practicing will give you confidence in communicating to an audience, not only when trying to pitch, but in any situation where you need present in front of a group of people..

Finally, try to have fun and see your presentation as a chance to let people know about your unique idea!

Written by Ha Dinh, Treasury – Deutsche Bank

Design Ventura Pitching Day 2011

The Ventura Team were very impressed on Monday when our top ten schools came in to pitch their products to our panel of judges. Everyone looked smart and had sent in their presentations before the day, so there was time for all the teams to have a short run-through of their pitches and to get some feedback from our volunteers.

The judges; Naomi Cleaver, designer, writer and critic, Alice Marsh from the Design Museum Shop and Christoph Woermann from Deutsche Bank had a tough job choosing which teams to award prizes to, but they have reached a decision and all the prize winners will be revealed at the Celebration Event in February.

News from the Pitching Event 2010

Thank you and congratulations to the 10 teams who presented their ideas at the Design Ventura pitching event on Tuesday 7 December. The schools represented at the pitching event participated in a series of 3 workshops as part of the Design Ventura project.  Our expert judges Sebastian Conran, Chris Ruse from Deutsche Bank and Alice Marsh, Head of Retail at the Design Museum Shop, face a very difficult task in choosing the over all winner as the standard of ideas and presentations were exceptionally high.   Well done to teachers and students for your incredible effort and amazing achievements on this project.

Virtual Ventura

Our panel of judges also selected winning ideas from Virtual Ventura submissions, and again were really impressed with the standard of ideas.  They found originality and marketability in the many competition entries they reviewed.