History showcases many examples of creative people who failed at school. Inventor Thomas Edison was described by one of his teachers as “addled” and had to be taught at home by his mother. Richard Branson quit school at 15 to begin his journey towards becoming a self- made billionaire entrepreneur.
“The way designers and entrepreneurs work is very different to the way kids are expected to behave at school,” says Catherine Ritman-Smith, Deputy Head of Learning at the Design Museum. “If very creative young people feel learning in the classroom has nothing to do with real life they can end up disillusioned and disengaged.”
Since 2010 an innovative London-based design project has been helping address this challenge, providing real-world learning to the students who might benefit most.
Design Ventura is an annual competition run by the Design Museum in partnership with Deutsche Bank. Its organisers invite students aged 13 to 16 from London’s state schools to develop their creativity and enterprise by following a real-life brief to design a product that can be sold in the museum’s shop for under £10. The winning entry is professionally manufactured and packaged to sell alongside famous creations like the Panton chair, the Swiss Railway Watch and the Trimphone.
The theme for 2011-2012 was ‘play’. Over 1,000 students from 32 schools in some of the capital’s most underprivileged boroughs took part, with a further 2,000 youngsters nationwide participating
“ Badoiiing is a savvy reinvention of a traditional playground game. It encourages human interaction at all ages and will endure long beyond the current crop of fashionable smartphones, to which it is a healthy antithesis.”
Sebastian Conran, designer
through Virtual Ventura, an online teaching resource.
The London-based students received business advice from expert mentors at Deutsche Bank and professional designers.
“A lot of the young people participating in this project won’t have met a business person or professional designer before, so these personal encounters help convince them that their own ideas are important,” says Ritman-Smith.
This year’s winning entry was the work of a group of students, all aged 14 or 15, at Walworth Academy in Southwark, South London.
The theme for the 2012-2013 Design Ventura competition is ‘journeys’. The winners will be announced in February 2013.
Badoiiing is available at the Design Museum Shop for £7.95.
Profits from the sale of Badoiiing, their modern take on the classic game of tiddlywinks, will go to the David Idowu Foundation, which works to prevent youth crime in the area around the school.
“It’s a game-changer for the boys,” explains Atam Sandhu, Head of Design at Walworth Academy, who first got the school involved.
“They’ve seen it go from concept to completion – a whole product lifecycle – within six months. To put this in their portfolio next year when they go to college will make a massive difference.”