Pitching Day: Design Ventura 2022-23

On 22 March 2023, the Design Ventura team welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools to Deutsche Bank HQ, Winchester House, for the 2022-23 Pitching Event. Below is a film of the event:

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: Christoph Woermann, Preena Pate, Sujata Burman, Selasi Setufe and Sebastian Conran.

Amy Harris, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility UK at Deutsche Bank, kicked off the event with a very warm welcome to Winchester House.

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 networking session with the other top 10 schools!

The winner will be announced in April when all the schools will return to the Design Museum for the Celebration Event.

All photos ©Richard Heald/Design Museum

Winning Product Development – Eco Seed Student Perspective

Students Amanda, Genevieve, Holly, William and Serena won Design Ventura 2021-22 with their product Eco Seed, a doughnut shaped grid which floats on water keeping seeds moist and provoking them to germinate. Here they talk about their experience of developing their design for sale in the Design Museum Shop.

‘As soon as we got the design brief about the five senses and knew that we wanted our product to be as sustainable as possible, we began coming up with ideas that would fit the design brief. After many different designs, we came up with a concept that allows you to grow a plant without soil or a plant pot. This applied well with the senses of sight, touch, taste and smell.  After many sketches, prototypes, iterations and 3D printed models we developed the Eco Seed.’

Regarding the sustainability side, we decided to use PLA as our 3D printing material because of its chemically degradable and recyclable properties, as well as its durability and waterproof properties.’

‘Once it was time to further develop our design for production and sale at the Design Museum’s shop, we collaborated with amazing designers from Batch Works and Triple Double. Together we discussed how our Eco Seeds could be manufactured and what kind of packaging it should be sold in. 

Changes to our Eco Seed consisted of printing the rings and grids separately (still in PLA), then clipping them back together, to reduce waste and manufacturing time, we also changed the grid shape from regular squares to a honeycomb pattern to make it more aesthetically pleasing.  

Regarding the colour of our Eco Seed’s ring and grid, was decided to test out different colours to see which ones reacted with the water and the seeds the least. After testing we concluded that the colours mustard yellow, and terracotta would be the best fit for our Eco Seed’s long-term use.

For our packaging we liked how our original one was very simple and allowed you to see the full Eco Seed, including the grid. However, to minimise packaging we decided to make it smaller and more compact whilst still allowing a window to view the Eco Seed’s grid, making the design even more playful and eye catching for all age ranges. 

Lastly, regarding the instructions, we were very keen to make sure anyone could understand how to use the Eco Seed. Our solution to this was to have illustrations rather than writing to facilitate universal understanding, and therefore use, of our product.

Collaborating along with designers from Triple Double and Batch Works was extremely enlightening​ ​and eye opening for us. Not only did we get to see how professional designers work, pitch their ideas and improve them based on feedback, we were also able to experience things from a client’s perspective. As the clients, we had a say about the next direction for the ideas and any requests or improvements. Everything was so much more professional.’

‘Going to London was such an exciting and unforgettable experience for us. We participated in workshops before the awards ceremony and had the opportunity to talk to multiple people from a range of design related backgrounds. We also had the opportunity to hear about two successful people’s journeys in detail, relating to their careers, which gave us many insights into these in particular.

When we found out that we had won the competition, all we could do was look at each other in awe while processing this. Everything seemed so surreal, like a fantasy or a dream. We were all hoping to win but couldn’t quite believe it at first. The whole experience taught us that hard work does pay off and it’s given us confidence in our designs and creativity.’

‘We would like to say a special thank you to Triple Double and Batch Works for helping us improve our product and its packaging, as well as the Deutsche Bank for hosting the pitching event and, of course, the whole Design Ventura team and judges for giving us the opportunity to compete in the competition by shortlisting our team.’

Final product available for sale in the Design Museum Shop

Design Ventura 2022-23 Webinars

Design Ventura webinars are for teachers and students. They feature leading designers speaking about their work and offering top tips for each stage of the Design Ventura project. You can watch all four webinars from this year’s programme below:

Webinar 1: User Research and Audiences with Designer, Imran Nazerali.

Webinar 2: Sustainable Materials with Maria Giovanna Sandrini from Econyl.

Webinar 3: Business of Design with Alex Asomuyide, Head of UX Credit Risk at Deutsche Bank.

Webinar 4: Creative Process with Yamuna Forzani

Design Ventura 2021-22 Winning Product Eco Seed

The Design Ventura 2021-22 winners are Cambourne Village College with their product Eco Seed, a doughnut shaped grid which floats on water keeping seeds moist and provoking them to germinate.

Cambourne Village College’s design sheets demonstrate how the team generated and developed their ideas. The sheets clearly show the team’s design and prototyping processes and how they planned to address the criteria set out in the design brief, as well as allowing our shortlisting judges to clearly understand the final product design.

The team competed against 18,000 students from 397 schools across the UK. With their entry, Cambourne Village College 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 22 March. After much deliberation, the judges decided they should be the winners of Design Ventura 2021-22. You can watch this video to find out more about what happens at pitching day.

Cambourne Village College 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.

You can see the student team from Cambourne Village College talking about Eco Seed on BBC Cambridge and read about the winning product on Hort News.

Following the Celebration Event, the student team worked with design agency Triple Double Studio and Batch.Works to develop their Design Ventura 2021-22 winning product. The first product development meeting with the designers took place at both design agencies studios in London.

Eco seed launched at the Design Museum on 16th January 2023. The students from Cambourne Village College came to museum to launch the product in the shop. The product is on sale for £10.00 and all the proceeds will be donated to the students charity of choice: MND Association.

On Monday 3rd July 2023 the student team returned to the Design Museum to present a cheque from the sales of Eco Seed. The school raised an amazing £2550.42 for their chosen charity MND Association

All photos ©Richard Heald Photography/Design Museum

Design Ventura Pitching Event 2021-22

On 22 March 2022, the Design Ventura team welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools to Deutsche Bank HQ, Winchester House, for the 2021-22 Pitching Event. Below is a film of the event:

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: Rosa Bertoli, Christoph Woermann, Preena Patel, Yuri Suzuki and Sebastian Conran.

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

Fiona MacDonald, Head of Learning at 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!

Cambourne Village College 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 April when all the schools will return to the Design Museum for the Celebration Event.

All photos ©Luc Schol/Design Museum

Winning Product Development – Grow Wild Student Perspective

Students Alice, Emily, Hannah and Naomi won Design Ventura 2020 with their seed launcher design, Grow Wild (formerly called Sow Beautiful). Here they talk about their experience of developing their design for sale in the Design Museum Shop.

“The process of developing the Grow Wild seed launcher has been a real eye opener. Having the opportunity to work with practicing designers gave us an excellent insight into the importance of carefully considering many different aspects of a design before it can be launched.

At the centre of all decisions is the customer. Ultimately, in order for the product to be successful, the customer must appreciate every aspect of it, from the name, to the packaging and the function of the product.

We were led through the development process by the brilliant duo of Huw and Mark of the Tom, Dick and Harry design studio in Leeds. Our first meeting was focused on the name of the product. We were all in agreement that although our original name of Sow Beautiful worked reasonably well, it didn’t really give an accurate representation of what the product does. To generate a range of potential product names we first recorded numerous words related to the function of the product. We then combined these words in different ways and discussed the most effective outcomes. After discussing the different options with members of the target audience, we concluded that Grow Wild would be the best name as it is a fun play on words and gives the customer a good idea of what the product does.

The next stage of the development process was focused on branding. Huw and Mark mocked up the packaging in a range of different designs from traditional and floral to modern and minimalist. Seeing the hexagonal packaging in these different styles really brought the product to life and gave us the opportunity to talk about which design we thought would be most appealing to our chosen target market. Again, we took feedback before deciding on this fun, hand illustrated style. The main deep yellow colour is not only eye catching and representative of summer and growth, it also ties in well with our school colours. 

It has been an incredible experience to be involved in and we are beyond excited to be launching our product at the Design Museum in early 2022. We can’t wait to see and hold the finished product!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Deutsche Bank and the Design Ventura team, without whom none of this would have been possible.”

Design Ventura 2021-22 Industry Insights Online Event

We are pleased to announce the panel of design and business professionals for our online Industry Insights event taking place on the 12 January 2022 5-6pm. You can watch the recording of this event below:

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 the different careers in design and business.

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

Malaika Carr
www.thechalkhouse.com

Chalk is a London based design studio run by architect Malaika who creates unusual, geometric jewellery.

Chalk is influenced by architectural elements, everyday objects and bold colourful cultural patterns. Founder Malaika established her jewellery line while studying architecture at the University of Westminster. Here she made numerous intricate models using the laser cutting machine; she started to use the same process to make her own jewellery which later became the label. Since graduation she has continued to make her own pieces and the brand has developed to include their own e-commerce shop as well as supplying a number of exciting stockists around the world.

Richard Hayes
www.playlenz.com

Richard is founder of Heayes Design and Playlenz which are game and toy development and invention studios.

Having worked for over 30 years in product design with the majority spent working in the play industry. Richard was Design Director for games at Hasbro looking after brands such as Monopoly, Cluedo, Connect 4 and Trivial Pursuit as well as working on brands such as Playdoh, Star Wars and Marvel. 

Most of the work today involves creating and developing new play concepts as well as inventing and licensing new concepts to global toy and game companies. 

Huw James
www.studiotdh.com

Huw has 20 years’ experience in the creative industries, working at design agencies in England and Australia before starting his own studio, Tom, Dick & Harry, in his home city of Leeds.

Huw uses design thinking and a human-centred approach to solve creative problems in branding and design. He is a Fellow of the RSA and is studying an MBA at the University of Manchester, exploring the intersection of creativity and business as a force for good.

Sourav Mishra
www.db.com

Sourav is a Product Manager in the Technology, Data and Innovation division of Deutsche Bank. He is a Capability Lead who partners with business colleagues, technology architects and developers to identify innovative solutions.

Sourav has a particular focus on Risk Calculation and Operations and uses the latest big data technologies to solve complex high volume challenges. He has been with Deutsche Bank since 2010 and has worked on numerous projects across the Risk Management space.

Ling Tan
www.lingql.com

Ling is a designer and artist working within the field of social engagement, technology and citizen participation. Originally trained as an architect, her work explores citizens’ interaction with the built environment and our collective agency and responsibility in tackling complex issues surrounding our cities. She works with diverse communities in helping them make sense of their environment, express opinions in a playful and performative way, and collectively address issues ranging from public safety, air quality to climate change using technology and participation methodologies.

An introduction to branding and marketing from Make It Clear

Branding and marketing your idea, where to begin? 

When creating a business or launching a new product, one of the first things to consider is branding and marketing.

–   Branding is who you are and what you look like

–   Marketing is how you increase people’s awareness of who you are and how you sell to your target audience.

Branding and marketing have to work together so your product looks and talks to its audience in the same way and sells well!

What is branding?

To begin creating your brand, you must first ask yourself and your team a few questions to understand what your brand is. The questions below are a great place to begin:

• Why did you create your product?
• What makes your product different?
• What do you want people to think of when they hear your product name?
• What feelings/reactions do you want people to have when they think about your product?

The typical parts of a brand are:

• The brand identity: This includes things like your logo, colours and how you use things like photography or illustrations
• Brand values: The things you really care about, take a look at the Make it Clear brand values on this video we created here
• Brand positioning: This shows why your product is different and better than the others
• The brand tone of voice: How you talk to the people that will buy your product

Your branding will establish what people will expect from your product. Knowing what you want to represent in your brand, can guide your marketing.

What is marketing?

Marketing refers to methods used to increase awareness of your product among your target audience, through messaging and visuals. Marketing can become complicated so start by focusing on the following:

–   What you want to say and how you want to say it

–   How you can reach the people who will want to buy your product

(For example, what social media platforms do your target audience use, or would it be better to just drop a leaflet through a door?)

Chicken or the egg, branding or marketing – which comes first?

Because branding is who you are, it must come first. Before creating your marketing messaging and visuals, you must first decide who your brand is so that you know what you are communicating.

Conclusion

When it comes to building a great brand and marketing plan, it’s all about creating something that works best for your unique product. Sometimes things may not go as planned but the important thing is to try new ideas. So be brave and good luck with branding and marketing your product for the Design Ventura competition!

Design Ventura 2021-22 Webinars

Design Ventura webinars are for teachers and students. They feature leading designers speaking about their work and offering top tips for each stage of the Design Ventura project. You can watch all four webinars from this year’s programme below:

Webinar 1: Audiences with Resolve Collective
Akil Scafe-Smith, Designer and Co-Founder of Resolve Collective talks about audiences

Webinar 2: Coming up with Ideas with Fixperts
Daniel Charny, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Fixperts talks about coming up with ideas

Webinar 3: Prototyping & Materials with Helen Kirkum Studio
Sustainable sneaker designer Helen Kirkum talks about prototyping and materials

Webinar 4 – Colour & Communication with The Fandangoe Kid
Annie Nicholson, aka The Fandangoe Kid, talks about colour and communication

Please share these videos with your students and please take a moment to give us your feedback here.

Product Development Meeting for Sow Beautiful

On Monday 19 July 2021 the Design Ventura 2020 winning team from Heckmondwike Grammar School visited Design Studio ‘Tom Dick and Harry‘ for the first product development meeting for ‘Sow Beautiful’. The students have written this blog post about their experience:

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! 

Design Ventura 2020 Winning Product Grow Wild

The Design Ventura 2020 winners are Heckmondwike Grammar School with their product Grow Wild (formerly called Sow Beautiful), a flower seed canon used to disperse seeds to help tackle bee decline by creating a source of pollen for wild bees.

Heckmondwike Grammar School’s design sheets demonstrate how the team generated and developed their ideas. The sheets clearly show the team’s design and prototyping processes and how they planned to address the criteria set out in the design brief, as well as allowing our shortlisting judges to clearly understand the final product design.

The team competed against 15,000 students from 270 schools across the UK. With their entry, Heckmondwike Grammar School earned a place in the shortlist as one of the seven schools asked to submit a 3-minute pitch video to be reviewed by our pitching judges on 12 May. You can watch this video to find out more about what happens at pitching day.

Design Ventura 2020’s pitching day took place online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Heckmondwike team made a convincing case for Sow Beautiful producing an engaging pitch video and demonstrating clearly how the product fulfilled the design brief and judging criteria. After much deliberation, the judges decided they should be the winners of Design Ventura 2020.

The Heckmondwicke Grammar School team were awarded with the Design Ventura trophy at the Celebration Event. All top seven shortlisted products were exhibited at the Design Ventura exhibition at the Design Museum.

You can see the student team from Heckmondwike talking about Sow Beautiful on Leeds Local TV and read more about their process on PBS News Hour and the Guardian.

Following the Celebration Event, the student team from Heckmondwike worked with design agency Tom, Dick and Harry to develop their Design Ventura 2020 winning product. The first product development meeting with the designers took place at Castleton Mill in Leeds. You can read more about the students experience in their blog post here.

The students returned to the Design Museum in February to launch their product in the Design Museum Shop. The product is now on sale and retails at £6.50. All proceeds go to the student’s chosen charity Kirkwood Hospice. Buy it here.

The students wrote about their experience of developing their product for sale. You can read about this on our blog.

The student team visited Kirkwood Hospice, their chosen charity on 8 July 2022.

They presented the charity with a cheque from the total sales their product made in the Design Museum shop. Impressively, Grow Wild raised a total of £1,859.

Design Ventura 2020 Online Pitching Event

On Wednesday 12 May 2021, the Design Ventura team hosted an online pitching event as part of the Design Ventura 2020 competition. The shortlisted schools were invited to create a 3 minute pitch video explaining their product idea. This was reviewed by our panel of expert judges as part of the online pitching event.

The judges were incredibly impressed by the professionalism of the students’ pitch videos. You can watch a selection of short snippets of these in the video below:

The seven state schools also joined the judges for a 15 minute live Q&A session. This was an opportunity for the judges to ask the students further questions about their design process and product idea. The judges really enjoyed meeting the students and learning more about their designs.

Well done to all the student teams for all their hard work. We look forward to welcoming the state schools to the Design Museum for the Celebration Event on Friday 11 June 2021, where the winner will be announced. The schools in the International and Independent Category will attend an award day at the Design Museum in July.

Good luck teams!

Design Ventura Winning Product 2019 Creative [Un]blocks

The Design Ventura 2019 winners are Twynham School 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. This fun and inspiring game was a favourite of the judges. 

Twynham School’s design sheets demonstrate how the team generated and developed their ideas. The sheets clearly show the team’s design and prototyping processes and how they planned to address the criteria set out in the design brief, as well as allowing our shortlisting judges to clearly understand the final product design.

The team competed against 16,000 students from 300 schools across the UK. With their entry, Twynham School earned a place in the shortlist as one of the ten schools invited to pitch their ideas to a panel of expert judges at Winchester House in December 2019. You can watch this video to find out more about what happens at pitching day.

The team made a convincing case for Design Cubes at the pitching event, presenting an engaging pitch and demonstrating clearly how the product fulfilled the design brief and judges criteria. After much deliberation, the judges decided they should be the winners of Design Ventura 2019.

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

Following the Celebration Event, students from Twynham School worked with design studio Triple Double to develop their Design Ventura 2019 winning product. The first product development meeting with the designers took place via Zoom during lock down.

For the second meeting the students travelled to Mile End in London to see the Triple Double Studio.

The socially distanced meeting was followed by a creative workshop where the students used disposable cameras to capture examples of typography in the area.

Due to lockdown, the product was launched on the Design Museum Shop online. Retailing at £5.95, all proceeds from the sales go to the students’ chosen charity Rainforest Alliance UK.

To celebrate the launch of their product, the students enjoyed a half day or creative activities including a typography workshop led by Sarah Hyndman from Type Tasting and had an unboxing of their product.

In February 2021, the Design Museum Shop window had a Creative [Un]Blocks window takeover in High Street Kensington, to showcase the physical products to passers by. Creative [Un]Blocks sold out and raised a grand total of £1560 for Rainforest Alliance UK.

The student team returned to the Design Museum on 17 June 2021 to present a cheque to their chosen charity Rainforest Alliance UK.

Design Ventura Pitching Event 2019

On 9 December 2019, the Design Ventura team welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools to Deutsche Bank HQ, Winchester House, for the 2019 Pitching Event. Below is a film of the event:

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

Example Submission: 2018 Family Stuff Fund

As the deadline for Design Ventura approaches, we wanted to look back at the submission that won ‘commendation for most market ready product’ back in Design Ventura 2018.

The judges loved Spalding School’s Family Stuff Fund. The panel liked that the idea improved every day life for one of the Design Museum Shop’s target users – families. This was well demonstrated thorough development, prototyping and research.

Below is their submission form and A3 sheets. We’d like to highlight some of the strengths and some areas for improvement from their submission, things to look out for when submitting for Design Ventura 2019.

Strengths:

1. Clarity – the layout is clear and easy to understand. The sheets clearly communicate what the product is and show the design process. Also, each sheet has the name of the school at the bottom.
2. Design Development – the sheets show the design process. They include initial sketches of the idea, research into similar existing products, photos of prototypes and ideas for packaging design.
3. Budgeting – they have looked at costings and suppliers.

Areas for improvement:

1. Further research – while they have shown good research of other similar products, some further research of the Design Museum Shop specifically could have been useful to show.
2. User testing and feedback – including feedback on their design by their target audience would have strengthened this entry.
3. Sustainability – more information about how they plan to minimise the negative impact of their product on the environment would have strengthened this entry.

The Spalding High School team made it into the Design Ventura 2018 top ten shortlist with this submission. They pitched their ideas to our expert judges at the Pitching Event in December and were awarded ‘commendation for most market ready product’ at the Celebration Event in February.

We can’t wait to see all the wonderful submissions for Design Ventura 2019!

Design Ventura Pitching Event 2018

On 10 December, the Design Ventura team welcomed the top ten shortlisted schools to the Design Museum for the 2018 Pitching Event:

Each team had a chance to present their 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: Christoph Woermann, Donna Wilson, Duncan Sanders, Sebastian Conran and Heather Corcoran.

Here are all of our schools waiting with anticipation for the Pitching Event to begin.

The panel had a fantastic time watching all the presentations and questioning the students 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 and teachers took part in a fun design challenge, seeing who could create the tallest structure out of marshmallows and spaghetti.

Gillotts School 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 ©Benedict Johnson/Design Museum

Example Submission: 2017 Second Place Entry – Fairmead School

As the deadline for Design Ventura 2018 approaches (Wednesday 14 November, 5pm), we wanted to look back at the submission that won second place in last year’s competition.

The judges loved Fairmead School’s Spinning Thumb Plate. The panel liked that the idea met a specific need, demonstrated thorough development, prototyping and research.

Below is their submission form and A3 sheets. We’d like to highlight some of the strengths and some areas for improvement from their submission, things to look out for when submitting for Design Ventura 2018.

Entry Form:

A3 Sheets:

 

Budget:

Strengths:

1. Clarity – the layout is clear and easy to understand. The sheets clearly communicate what the product is and show the full design process. Also, each sheet has the name of the school at the top.
2. Design Development – the sheets show the design process from beginning to end. They include initial sketches of the idea and photos of different prototypes. They show the product in use and the planned packaging design.
3. Budgeting – they have filled out a sample budget sheet, looking at costings and suppliers. (While the budget sheet is not a requirement of submission, clear costings should be included in your A3 sheets if not included in a separate budget sheet.)

Areas for improvement:

1. Only 2 sheets – we do ask schools to submit 3 sheets and an optional, additional budget sheet.
2. Further research – while they have shown good research of other similar products, some further research of the Design Museum Shop specifically could have been useful to show.
3. User testing and feedback – including feedback on their design by their target audience would have strengthened this entry.

We can’t wait to see all the wonderful submissions for Design Ventura 2018!

 

 

 

 

Design Ventura Winning Product 2017 Petal Pot

This year’s Design Ventura winning product, Petal Pot, is a plant pot that expands as the plant grows, reducing the waste of replacing pots.

The idea created by Sanjita, Libby, Emma, Shiann from Weatherhead High School will be manufactured and sold to the public from this summer at the Design Museum Shop.

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

Following the Celebration Event, the team worked with the design studio  Giles Miller to develop their winning product. When developing the product they decided to make it out of Gum-tec, a material made from recycled chewing gum. This material was created by the 2017 Brief Setter, Anna Bullus the founder of Gumdrop.

Through collaborative sessions they worked together to get Petal Pot ready to be made and sold in the Design Museum Shop. The product was launched at the Design Museum Shop in 2018.

On the launch day, the team put their sales skills to the test, selling their product at the Deutsche Bank Office. 

All proceeds from the sale of Petal Pot went to the team’s chosen charity, Claire House Childrens’ Hospice. The students later visited Claire House Hospice in December 2018.