At Young V&A we believe in celebrating the design ideas and creativity of young people, this year we launched our very first Design Competition for under 14’s. The competition brief was set by our summer Maker-Takeover Designers Batch.Works and Kibu, who took over The Shed for the summer holidays. Young people and their families came to visit the designers and see up close 3D Printing in action and learn about circular manufacturing firsthand. Alongside in Open Studio we ran several workshops with the chance to enter design ideas into our competition.
The Shed is a space for designers to work and develop their practice while being inspired by Young V&A’s collections and visitors. We host a six-month placement every year and several Maker Takeovers. Opening to the public twice a week, The Shed serves as inspiration and a valuable insight into the diversity of design disciplines and the chance to meet a professional designer. Our aim is to build creative confidence in young people through meeting designers and having the opportunity to work alongside them.
The design brief inspired by the senses was developed to celebrate the launch of the Kibu headphones.
‘Design a useful object to enhance, help or improve one of your senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste or smell. It just needs to be small enough that it can be carried with you’.
We loved seeing the ingenuity of all the entries, and after reviewing nearly 200 exciting designs we were unanimous on one stand-out winner. We are very excited to announce that Ruby Parish age 12 won with her incredibly playful smell enhancing design. Inspired by ear trumpets, Ruby designed the ‘Smelling Horns’ to enhance and focus smells. This design really grabbed our imaginations and made us all chuckle the moment we saw them, such a simple and effective concept and what feels like the perfect antidote to mask wearing times!
The Design was developed with Dean Pankhurst of Batch.Works who 3D modelled the design into three parts to 3D print it. It went through several iterations to get the design to its final version, with adaptations made to the grip, nose application and diameter of the horns. Dean tried various different materials to print it with, including flexible rubber and recycled plant-based bioplastic; a sustainable material that Batch.Works uses for many of the products they make.
We caught up with the winner Ruby Parish who had visited Young V&A over the summer on one of the competition days ‘Meet the Designer’ Events. She talked to us passionately about her love of design and curiosity of making.
“I was so excited to see the shed, I am really interested in 3D Printing and seeing how they work. It was great to meet and talk to the designers and ask questions about their process. I love understanding how things work and building things from scratch, Design and Technology is one of my favorite subjects at school… This was the first time I have met a designer in-person; it felt like a very unique experience!”
Ruby Parish, competition winner
For many of our visitors ‘Meet the Designer’ events are a rare first opportunity to meet a professional designer in-person, this is a unique chance to gain insight into the busy workings of a design studio. Open Studio and The Shed are both spaces within the Design gallery at Young V&A that celebrate design and designers by engaging young people in playful challenges. Ruby explained her design process when taking on our brief, we loved how she leant on her existing knowledge of objects and used her imagination to develop her ideas. At Young V&A we are well aware of the significance of these first experiences and the impact they will have on young people, so we also wanted to know how she felt about winning this competition.
“I discussed with my family different ideas, and we talked about old ear horns used for hearing, I imagined it would be good to have something similar for smelling… “It felt amazing to win this competition as I’ve never won anything before and especially as it’s a design competition.”
Ruby Parish, competition winner
Enormous congratulations to Ruby for winning our first Young V&A Design Competition!
