A Recently, a leading design federation in the UK warned that the UK could face a creative skills shortage, after the latest figures revealed a drop of almost 10 percent in students studying Design and Technology. These figures showed that the number of pupils that sat exams in Design and Technology fell 10 percent from 204,788 to 185,279 last year.
B Chief executive John Kampfner of the Creative Industries Federation thinks that this drop in figures has worrying implications for the skills pipeline in Britain’s hugely successful arts and creative industries. He said, “We already have skills shortages in many jobs such as animation and special effects.” He added: “Engineering, which requires a similar mix of creative and technical skills, also has recruitment problems.”
C Many other designers and architects have expressed concern over the future supply of home-grown talent for UK firms, and industry bodies have pointed out that there has been a lack of roots-level support. However, if these designers had visited the Design Museum shop in London earlier this year their fears may have been eased. With £10 to spend, they could have bought a fascinating children’s toy called “Dazzle Racer”. An automotive cylinder, it included a wind-up, elastic-band- powered mechanism, minimal parts, all 100 percent recycled, and lots of stickers. It was good fun, simple, eye-catching and very original.
D Well, you’d expect the Design Museum to commission and make some interesting items, but this one was different. Designed by a group of six Year 9 and Year 10 boys from Finchley Catholic High School, the toy was the winning entry in the museum’s 2015 Design Ventura competition, which brings the business of design to life for students aged 13 to 16 by challenging them to develop a new creative, sustainable and commercially feasible product for the Design Museum shop and attracts hundreds of entries nationwide.
E “We did Design Ventura in my previous school,” says Liam Hourican, Finchley Catholic High School’s design technology curriculum leader, “Then when I changed schools four years ago, I introduced it here because it helps to develop so many skills.”
F The theme for last year’s competition was “Move”, and Hourican began with three groups working in lunch breaks and after school before selecting the group with the most innovative idea. Each participating school may submit just one proposal. “It’s the taking part and doing the work which is important,” he says. “And I never dreamt we’d win.”
G Catherine Ritman Smith, head of learning at the Design Museum, is expecting around 10,000 participants aged 13 to 16 to take part this year and says that the project—funded by Deutsche Bank as part of its youth engagement programme Born To Be—is the biggest event in the museum’s calendar. “We started Design Ventura with around 800 young people in 2010 and it has grown steadily since,” she says. “Teachers like it because the skills are all transferable and it helps to validate the value of design as a subject,” she explains, telling me that nearly 600 schools have taken part so far.
H So how does the competition work? A single-word theme is announced in the summer. This year it is “Change”. Schools work with groups to produce imaginative design ideas for a product in simple materials that could sell for £10 in the Design Museum shop. Participating schools then register by November and eventually submit their design idea. Along the way there is training and support for teachers and tutoring for students from designers. An additional bonus is when the winners see their design on sale in the spring of the following year.
I Hourican and his pupils have happy memories of spending a whole day at the museum, having been selected as one of 10 shortlisted schools to present their idea to a panel of judges, including designer Jasper Conran. Then they worked with the Kin Design Studio in Shoreditch, met designers at their school and attended a lunch with Deutsche Bank employees. The students helped to make decisions and there were plenty of discussions—they changed the product’s name, for example.
J “One of the really useful things about this competition,” says Hourican, “is that there’s a commercial element because the product is going on sale for real and the boys had to learn about budgeting and marketing, as well as designing their game.” Profits go to charity. “The winning team chooses where it wants the profits to go,” says Ritman Smith. “The Finchley Catholic High School product raised about £1,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital.” Winning entries in past years have included a make-your-own cloth kit called Dove Bunting and a threefold, wallet-sized travel game with goals at each end, called Badolting.
K It costs the schools nothing to participate in Design Ventura; the professional designers provide their services for free. Among them are architect Asif Khan, a Design Museum trustee who has worked as designer-in-residence at the museum, helping emerging architects. He has recently been commissioned to design the new Museum of London building in Smithfield.
L Another is television presenter and interior designer Naomi Cleaver, who is one of the competition’s judges. “I’m very keen to encourage young people,” she says, observing that design brings together other subjects such as literature, art, history, geography and science. “Now that design education is limited in the curriculum, I’m all in favour of competitions such as Design Ventura, which helps to bring the standard curriculum to life,” says Cleaver. “And the judging day is terrific fun. Some of these students are very imaginative. One group presented their idea in the form of a puppet show and we see some marvelous demonstration models. I’m always impressed by the levels of confidence and the support the students get from their teachers.”
M Ritman Smith adds: “Design technology has become a tricky subject to make a case for, and we’ve heard of departments closing in some schools. We find that if pupils take part in Design Ventura in Year Nine it can be the trigger which leads them to opt for it at General Certificate of Secondary Education, so we are helping to keep alive something which is crucial to industry and entrepreneurship.”