Howard Stevens is a very happy schoolteacher. Four pupils from Heckmondwike Grammar School in West Yorkshire where he teaches Design and Technology have won the prestigious 2020 Design Ventura, the Design Museum and Deutsche Bank’s annual design and enterprise competition for schools with their “Sow Beautiful” wildflower seed cannon concept. Soon, their prototype will be turned into a real product and sold in the Design Museum Shop.

Naomi, Alice, Emily and Hannah collected their award at the Design Museum in London on 11 June 2021; an event that was all the more special to the girls after 15 months of Covid-19 lockdowns

Run in partnership with Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) youth engagement programme Born to Be,¹ Design Ventura is an important part of the school curriculum where students in years 9, 10 and 11 tackle a live design brief set by a professional designer. It is now in its 11^th year having celebrated its tenth anniversary with the 2020 competition.

“When you see how long and how deeply this unique design competition has become embedded in the school curriculum across the UK, it’s clear that Design Ventura has helped to demonstrate the multitude of educational benefits Design and Technology can offer students,” says Christoph Woermann, Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Bank Chief Marketing Officer, and one of the competition’s judges.

“The skills students develop through their Design Ventura journey, such as confidence, flexibility and resilience, are important for everyday life. They learn about pricing, how to communicate their ideas and work as a team. Some students have gone on to be professional designers and entrepreneurs, others have gained skills that have helped them get into university, secure work experience or land their first job,” adds Lareena Hilton, Global Head of Brand Communications and CSR at the Bank. She points out that “the past year has been an exceptionally challenging one for schools” and that Deutsche Bank is “delighted that Design Ventura continues to shine a spotlight on young talent”.

“We need to encourage young people. Let them know that you can make a career out of design”
Yinka Ilori, Designer. Photo of Yinka Ilori © Andrew Meredith

Design Ventura follows the process of responding to a real design brief to give students an experience of life as a creative. This year’s design brief was set by artist and designer Yinka Ilori, whose designs, inspired by his British Nigerian heritage, have graced Selfridges shop windows, The Dulwich Picture Gallery and Cannes Film Festival.²

“I wish I had had a programme like Design Ventura when I was younger,” says Ilori. “We need to encourage young people. Let them know that you can make a career out of design.”

More than 15,600 students from 290 schools participated in the 2020 programme and the seven shortlisted teams have their work on display at the Design Museum until 22 August with the winning product “Sow Beautiful” being manufactured for sale in time for Christmas. All proceeds from finished product sales go to The Kirkwood – a local hospice selected by the Heckmondwike Grammar School students because of the important support it provides to the local community, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Within Heckmondwike Grammar School alone (so imagine this multiplied by as much as 290) there was a substantial internal competition to be put forward. Stevens confirmed that 16 student teams went through all the project materials, watched the designer’s briefing video, came up with their own design responses to the brief and delivered an internal pitch to the rest of the class. A combination of peer and teacher assessment graded each one on three criteria: (a) how well they presented; (b) the quality of the presentation boards; and (c) the actual idea itself.

As a former professional industrial designer of bespoke office furniture, Stevens is absolutely passionate about the younger generation coming up with ideas that could actually find their way into the economy. Asked why he gave up commercial design for teaching, he explains, “An opportunity came up, so I thought I’d pass some knowledge on to the next generation. Twelve years later, here I am, and absolutely loving the job.”

Many of the schools that took part this year ran the programme in the autumn term of 2020 when schools were open but operating in year group bubbles. “We were quite lucky in that we got most of the project done before the restrictions came in,” Stevens told flow during a rare moment of calm in a coffee break.  He explained that because of the pandemic, trying to get down to the Design Museum and look at other items in the gift shop was “very difficult” so “we just tend to use the Design Ventura online resources”.

“The creative process requires students to be bold when exploring new concepts without fearing the misconception of 'failure'”
Howard Stevens, Design Technology Teacher, Heckmondwike Grammar School

Support includes free teacher continuing professional development (CPD) events, including live online sessions that include pathways to the Goldsmith College MA in Design Education, webinars with leading designers, as well in school and online workshops led by industry professionals. Because of the pandemic, the Design Museum could not offer museum workshops in 2020 so these were delivered in schools and online instead. For Design Ventura 2021−22, says Project Manager Poppy Parry, “We are offering museum, online and in school workshops”.

For such a hands-on project, Design Ventura 2020 was quite unlike any other year in its ten-year history. Parry explains, “A lot changed in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially for schools. Design Ventura continued to run throughout lockdown, but 2020 saw some key changes – the extension of the programme to run over two terms and the creation of even more online resources.”

She adds, “In this most unusual year, we were amazed by the resourcefulness of teachers and the resilience of students, who continued to meet everyday challenges with incredible creativity. To support remote learning, we ran an online mini challenge for years 7 and 8 that received more than 3,000 entries, created an online ideas generator (theideamachine.org) used by 16,000 people, and a paper forms workshop video was viewed more than 6,000 times.”

Part of the inaugural 2010 winning team from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College with their Dove Bunting submission,⁵ former winning student Jodie Valerie went on to graduate with a degree in Publishing Design from Norwich University of the Arts in 2019. More recently, she has worked for BBC Studios as a Junior Designer and is now freelance building her portfolio. Her speciality is media design “My love of storytelling tied everything I have done together connects all my work, “she says.

“We are really lucky that we have Design Ventura where you learn about [design] at a young age”
Jodie Valery, Freelance Designer, Design Ventura winner 2010

Post-university, Jodie ran student workshops at her old school in South London and also became a volunteer for Design Ventura 2019: ‘Having recently graduated, I wanted to build on my work experiences,’ Jodie explains. “I liked the idea of giving back and inspiring young people doing the competition,” she adds.

As a young girl she had always 'enjoyed painting, craft and being creative' but admits she assumed design was a profession “you would learn about later”. She was pleasantly surprised. “We are really lucky that we have Design Ventura where you learn about it at a young age and understand it from a commercial perspective,” reflects Valery. A high point of the presentation ceremony was meeting Sir Terence Conran – the founder of the Design Museum. “That was pretty cool,” she smiles.

When asked what might be her “signature” project, she points out that design is a collective collaborative process, where you are part of a team working on an event or a particular project. 'I've enjoyed working in media with companies like BBC Studios and Discovery, but I'm always open to learning and delving into different sectors of design particularly branding, editorial and art direction.'

Worryingly, the UK is experiencing a reduction in secondary school students choosing Design and Technology at GCSE or its equivalent (Key Stage 4). This raises questions about design capacity in the future.

Amanda Spielman was confirmed by the UK Government’s Education Secretary Gavin Williamson as Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills (HMCI) for a new term of two years at the end of May 2021.⁶  

Spielman is particularly passionate about Design and Technology education and gave something of a wake-up call in 2019 in a speech about how to tackle what she called the “long-term decline” in Design and Technology student numbers.⁷ If uncorrected, more and more design project work would end up going overseas, “and if we don’t educate the next generation of designers, they will never come back,” she warned.

“Back in 2000, Design and Technology stopped being a compulsory subject in Key Stage 4. It became more of a school choice whether to offer it or not.” She continued, “I hope to see schools re-engaging with the Design and Technology curriculum. And I’d like to see society valuing and appreciating the wonderful developments technology and good design has afforded us.”

Design Ventura, passionate teachers such as Howard Stevens, and former students giving back such as Jodie Valery all play a vital part in developing the new generation of designers and craftspeople.

“It is a privilege for Deutsche Bank to be able to play a part in attracting young people to discover their infinite personal potential through a design challenge, concludes Deutsche Bank’s Woermann. “ to Sir Terence Conran’s famous quote “The designer’s job is to imagine the world not how it is, but how it should be.”  

To visit the Design Ventura free display on show until 22 August, visit https://designmuseum.org/digital-design-calendar/young-design-museum/design-ventura# 

Sources

¹ See https://bit.ly/3xkID0v at db.com
² See https://www.yinkailori.com/ 
³ See https://bit.ly/3frW88p at ventura.designmuseum.org for full details of the product design 
⁴ See https://bit.ly/2VwElpq at ventura.designmuseum.org
⁵ See https://bit.ly/3lryop1 at ventura.designmuseum.org
⁶ See https://bit.ly/2ViRQcM at gov.uk
⁷ See https://bit.ly/3lpfsXJ at ioe.ac.uk