Pics Pins and Go Glove show off innovation of young designers

Stylish badges of famous London landmarks, a photo frame inspired by journeys across the capital, and a bag that converts into a picnic mat.

These were just three of the innovative entries in this year’s Design Ventura competition, a design award to encourage students’ creativity and enterprise skills.

The competition, launched by the Design Museum and run in partnership with Deutsche Bank, challenged youngsters in years 9, 10 and 11 at London state schools to create “a well-designed, enterprising product” to be sold at the Design Museum’s shop in London.

First prize went to pupils from Trinity School in Lewisham, south London, who designed a badge set with images of famous London landmarks. Their product, Pics Pins, saw off competition from more than 100 secondary schools. 

The team received the award at a special ceremony at the Design Museum last week. As well as winning a £1,000 bursary, the pupils will receive guidance from professional designers to develop their product further.

Amanda Pearlman, head of retail at the Design Museum, said: “Pics Pins is a simple, effective and spot-on brief – affordable and excellently targeted at the young Design Museum visitor. I can’t wait to have them in the shop and online.”

Meanwhile, the winner of Virtual Ventura, an online version of the competition open to all UK and international schools, was Brentwood School in Essex. 

The Brentwood team hit on the idea of Go Gloves – light-up cycling gloves to improve bikers’ safety when signaling which way they are turning in the dark.  

The judging panel included designers Sebastian Conran and Anya Hindmarch. Visit http://ventura.designmuseum.org