Workshop for Designing for the Future competition

Last week saw the first workshop for this year’s Designing for the Future competition with students from the University of Brighton. Previous winner, Craig Barrow returned to Brighton to take part.

Last Thursday I was invited back to the University of Brighton to take part in a workshop for the Designing For The Future project, ran by The Future Perfect Company. Now in its fourth year, the project sees second year Design and Craft students tackle difficult and often overlooked issues surrounding aging, mortality, medical conditions and more. The students are challenged to re-think and re-design products and services related to these issues in a way that serves to break away from the stigmas and taboos usually associated with them.

As a previous winner, I was asked take part in the workshop which involved discussions, presentation of ideas and development of ideas. The students showed an interesting and varied range of ideas and directions and I am looking forward to seeing the outcomes when the competition is judged in May.

My Living Memorial Stone won the competition in 2011. The project explored  memorials and gravestones, addressing how they could be approached in contemporary design. The result was a planted bird seed form, encapsulating a compost tube, impregnated by a tree seed. As animals feed on the seed, the tree begins to sprout, becoming an ever-growing, ever-changing point of memorial. The piece becomes a celebration and giver of life in remembrance of life lost.

More images and more information can be found on Craig Barrow’s website craigbarrow.co.uk where this post first appeared.

Guest post on This Includes blog – the story behind our student design competition

As we are about to launch our student design competition, Designing for the Future,  at the University of Brighton for the fourth year, check out our guest post telling the story behind the competition for designer, Richard Child’s This Includes blog.

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“Designing for the Future” run by The Future Perfect Company in conjunction with the University of Brighton is now in its fourth year and encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting our ageing population – and to create innovative and attractive and designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active and independent lives.

Designing for the Future – update on student progress

Harry Trimble's interactive playmat 2010

As we are about to launch our “Designing for the Future” student design competition for the fourth year, I thought  it was a good time to give an update on the progress of some of our alumni :

Harry Trimble - Harry was the first winner of the Competition back in 2010 with his interactive play mat aimed at older parents. Having graduated from the University of Brighton with a first in 3D Design, Harry is currently Designer in Residence at London’s Design Museum.

Winner of the 2011 competition, Craig Barrow, also went on to graduate with a first and spent the last few months of 2012 exhibiting his work at TENT, 100% Design and Traces London.

Sophia Fong’s  Measuring carafe  from the 2011 Competition is now on sale in the Design Museum shop 

Designer Hanna Mawbey has been associated with the Competition since 2011. Hanna graduated with a MDes last Summer and is now focusing on producing her popular silver inhaler holder and other aesthetically pleasing medical aids. Her extraordinary prosthetic leg design was recently bought by the Aldrich Collection.

Chloe Meineck recently secured a Crafts Council residency to develop her beautiful musical memory box for people living with dementia. Chloe summed up the impact of the Competition on her work as follows :

“…‘Designing for the Future’ was a great opportunity for me. The competition guided my work in my last year of university, and does so today. Currently I am developing my dementia work on a residency with Crafts Council at Falmouth’s Academy for Innovation and Research. Also I am setting up a company to productise my research and prototypes. None of this could be achieved without Philippa’s competition and general enthusiasm for what she does. I hope the competition continues to grow and encourage more people to get involved with inclusive, sustainable and innovative design.”

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“Designing for the Future” run by The Future Perfect Company in conjunction with the University of Brighton is now in its fourth year and encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting our ageing population – and to create innovative and attractive and designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active and independent lives.

Aging 2.0 – a step forward for age-friendly design

Aging 2.0 London 2012

Last Thursday, I was invited to talk at the Aging 2.0 event at Google’s super cool CampusLondon venue.

Aging 2.0  is a global network of innovators working in the 50+ market who are intent on accelerating innovation to improve the quality of life for older adults around the world.

This was a pivotal event for me in several ways. First, it took place almost 3 years to the day after I launched The Future Perfect Company, inspired by no small degree by marketing guru Dick Stroud’s influential book, “The 50+Market”. It was rather uncanny to find myself on the same platform as Dick last week (as he promoted his follow up book ”Marketing to the Ageing Consumer”) two streets away from where I spent much of my previous life as a City lawyer.

Secondly, it was an opportunity to look back on the progress of the “Designing for the Future” competition which I launched with the University of Brighton at the same time as the company.  When I first broached the idea of a competition to encourage age friendly design, there was some concern as to whether the students would engage with a topic which was ostensibly so unfashionable. Four year later, this has ceased to be an issue and I was delighted on Thursday to be able to introduce Hanna Mawbey and Chloe Meineck who have now graduated and are developing their projects within their own design businesses.

Thirdly, it was really heartening to see how the market for design for older people is beginning to gain traction in the UK. Yes, we are still struggling with nomenclature – who wants to be “old”? – but there is some real progress being made by organisations such as the Design Council, Nesta, University of Brighton, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design and Brunel and online communities like Enabled by Design. And despite the difficulties accessing funding, there are some very intrepid start ups coming to the fore – Hymid R&D, Ode, Mind Dice, Grouple to name a few.

All in all, a very positive evening and many thanks to Aging 2.0 for bringing so many influential people together. A definite step forward in creating an age friendly future.

Designing for the Future student secures Crafts Council residency

Chloe Meineck with Music Memory Box

I was delighted to hear that Chloe Meineck, one of our Designing for the Future Competition students, has successfully secured a Crafts Council residency to develop her Music Memory Box. Her aim is to make the Music Memory Boxes available to anyone who would enjoy creating their very own bespoke box.

Chloe’s Music Memory Box uses familiar objects and music to help trigger dementia sufferers’ once thought inaccessible memories. The box is co-designed with the owner and their family and uses tactile, interactive objects to trigger music and sounds.

Chloe is planning a collaborative project with older people, addressing their relationship with craft and technology and experimenting as to how the two can be combined. She intends to explore the generation gap created by people’s differing relationships with technology and to understand what objects people treasure. 

It is fantastic to see work like this coming out of the Designing for the Future Competition and I look forward to following Chloe’s progress.

For further informaiton about Chloe and her work, visit Chloe Meineck’s website

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“Designing for the Future” run by The Future Perfect Company in conjunction with the University of Brighton is now in its fourth year and encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting our ageing population – and to create innovative and attractive and designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active and independent lives.

“Designing for the Future” featured on Omhu blog

Really delighted that our student design competition, “Designing for the Future”,  featured last week on the blog of US company, Omhu, designers of very beautiful walking sticks.

“November 16, 2012 Designing For The Future

We’re always pleased to find like-minded people operating in the same spaces and spheres that Omhu moves in, and we just heard about this UK initiative called The Future Perfect Company. They happen to run a yearly “Designing for the Future” contest in conjunction with the University of Brighton, which “encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting the UK’s aging population – and to create innovative and attractive designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active, and independent lives.” Some of the end products include an amazing-looking Music Memory Box which uses different stimuli to help those suffering from dementia to retrieve their identity. Quite frankly, we love this initiative and really hope to see more like this develop around the world.”

To visit the blog, go to http://omhu.com/blog

We will be talking about the competition and designer Chloe Meineck will be showcasing her Music Memory Box at Aging 2.0’s next event at the Google London Campus next week. For more details, including how to book, CLICK HERE

Aging 2.0 – Google CampusLondon – 22 November

I am really excited to have been invited to talk at the next Aging 2.0 event in London on 22 November at Google’s new CampusLondon venue.

Aging 2.0 (@agingtoo, #aging2) is a global network of innovators working in the 50+ market. They are creating an interdisciplinary, collaborative community drawn from business, research, policy, design and technology, together with older adults themselves. The mission is to accelerate innovation to improve the quality of life for older adults around the world.

The events bring a diverse collection of people together informally over drinks and good discussions to grow a the “connective tissue” that supports an ecosystem of innovation. Theygenerally start off with some ‘big picture’ perspectives from researchers, novel thinkers or industry veterans, which is followed by pitches from startup companies.

November’s event has a great line up of speakers including Halima Khan from Nesta, marketing guru Dick Stroud (if you only ever read one book on the 50+market, read his), Rama Gheerao from Helen Hamyln Centre for Design and pitches from The Amazings and The Ode.

We will be talking about our Designing for the Future Competition and designers Hanna Mawbey and Chloe Meineck will be presenting their projects. 

For more details, including how to register, go to : http://a2london1211-estw.eventbrite.com/

Enabled by Design-athon – a two day “ideas and prototyping fest for the 21st Century”

“More than anything, this weekend has made me really excited about focussing my practice on inclusive design. It is great to feel a part of a movement for good, that is not about ego and self-congratulation – it is about people, for people and made by people”. Hanna Mawbey 

Enabled by Design-athon

A few weeks ago, I was thrilled to be invited to what promised to be a very exciting couple of days - the Enabled by Design-athon, a “two day ideas and product prototyping-fest for the 21st Century”. This event planned to bring together designers, hackers and manufacturers with the Enabled by Design community of assistive product aficionados, to not only hear from leading makers and hackers, but actually prototype new products which would be more accessible, attractive and easier to use. I was less than thrilled when a particularly nasty dose of flu meant I could not go but here designer Hanna Mawbey  shares her experiences of what sounded like an amazing weekend.

It was a chilly morning on the Greenwich peninsula and as I approached Ravensbourne University’s design campus, I was struck by how much the area around the O2 arena has changed since it was first built. The built environment is bombastic and imposing, at the same time as being intriguing. I walked in with trepidation, because although I was very excited about what the next 24 hours would hold, I was also nervous as I had never been to a collborative event like this before and I definitely had that ‘first day of school feeling’ as I signed in at reception.

I had been looking forward to the Designathon since I first heard about it from Denise Stephens of Enabled By Design this summer. The idea was to bring together designers, makers, retailers, organisations and patients to collborate on a 24 hour design project. What a great way to meet likeminded people and to share information and experiences of working in this field of design.

Hanna Mawbey

First up on the agenda was a series of talks, kicked off with a warm welcome and very honest introduction from Denise. She spoke of her frustrations with design (or lack of) for assistive technology and how her life had been affected by the poor choices available to people like her who needed specialist products to live life a bit more comfortably. She argued that she did not understand why assistive technology needed to be so like hospital equipment, and why it couldn’t just look good.

Following on from that, there were fours talks, started by James Carrigan of Sugru & Fixperts who talked about people taking control of the objects around them by hacking and fixing them with a DIY ethic (Sugru is an air curing synthetic rubber). His enthusiasm was infectious and I am glad I got a sample of Sugru to take home and play with. Next up was Tom Hulme of IDEO who spoke to use about Open Design and how sharing ideas leads to innovation – definite food for thought. Following on from this Robin Wilson of the Technology Strategy Board gave a talk launching the Research & Development fund of £7m – the fund is raised on the back of government procurement and can be applied to by anyone with an idea using additive manufacturing that they want to develop. Finally Rob Phillips gave a talk around the democratisation of design and digital manufacture.

After this, we were split into fourteen different groups that we would work in for the remainder of the event. On my table there were seven people with a range of backgrounds – diverse and interesting. We had Rob who worked in marketing, Florie of Fixperts, Thor and Flo two Ravensborne University product design students, Sarah an assitive technology afficionado and Bruno a design consultant.

Our task: Our group was put into the ‘A Day In The Life’ section of the Designathon and we were given a packet of photographs that depicted someone’s day. Our task was to create a persona for this person, to try and work out what they liked, what they didn’t like and what affected their day life in terms of their mobility and needs.

We started to generate ideas and to make quick prototypes, some of which were good some of which were not so good – it didn’t matter because it was exciting! We identified with two main themes for the persona we had created. Firstly, they had issues with their short term memory and so would need some help to remember to take medicine and when cooking. Secondly, they had issues with dexterity and found it hard to use door handles, cutlery and other fiddly things that required grip and strength.

Throughout the day, we stopped for a chance to have ’show and tell’ sessions where all the groups fed-back their initial ideas to the other groups – it was so interesting to see what other groups were working on and how diverse all the projects were.

We decided at the end of the first day to stick with designing a tool to help our person grip things better and a very tired bunch of people decided to call it a day. We had all been working so hard to generate ideas, that we were all completely shattered by the time it came to go home (some of the group didn’t leave until 9pm!).

We settled on a design that was inspired by the Nike naked running shoes – a kind of second-skin hybrid that would at the same time bulk up the palm of the hand as well as increase grip. We envisaged the design being fabricated in neoprene for bulk and silicone for grip. Although it was still in the early prototype stages, we were pleased with the overall look of the Let Grip design.

The deadline was approaching, so we began to work on our branding and refining the design so we could present the project back to the rest of the group. The range of skills within our group was fantastic as there were people who were comfortable and well versed in CAD, as well as getting messy with fabrication. We completed our project and practiced our presentation to the group – it was a close shave with the deadline, but we did it.

On Saturday morning we returned at 9am enlivened by sleep and caffeine, ready to take on the task once again. By this point, we had realised that the person we had been designing for had been amongst us the whole time, and Sarah who had done a great job of keeping a secret was able to wholeheartedly immerse herself in the project without having to pretend she didn’t know. Sarah was able to give us great insights into her life and we really started to understand her needs. We went through a great number of iterations for the design of the grip, and we started to really flesh out our idea.

It was incredibly nerve-wracking to present to a room full of peers, but we did a great job and had some pertinent questions from the team of judges. I think if we had had more time, it would have been interesting to investigate material properites and different ways of affixing the Let Grip to the hand, and also to focus more on the aesthetic qualities and desirability of the item. Overall, I was very proud of our group and it was a relief to have completed such an exciting two days with such an accomplishment.

The rest of the groups also gave their presentations to the group – particular favourites of mine were the “Paul’s Kettle” design and the “Play Settings” dining tools.

So, what can I take away from this experience? Well, it was wonderful to meet some people who I have only ever communicated with on Twitter (I’m looking at you Richard and Peta) and to catch up with others who I haven’t seen for a while (Chloe and Such & Such Design). It was also great to test myself with being thrown into a situation with a bunch of strangers. We were all coming from different backgrounds so it was amazing how quickly we bonded and started to produce ideas. More than anything, this weekend has made me really excited about focussing my practice on inclusive design. It is great to feel a part of a movement for good, that is not about ego and self-congratulation – it is about people, for people and made by people.

Next up… The Aging 2.0 conference at Google in London. I’m presenting my asthma inhalers in a short pitch. Got a busy few weeks ahead.

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For more information about Hanna Mawbey, Click here . Hanna will be talking about her latest designs at the next Aging 2.0 event in London on 22 November

Graduate of Designing for the Future competition unveils her Music Memory Box

A nice feature today on the University of Brighton’s website about Chloe Meineck and her Music Memory Box.

Chloe, who graduated in design and craft from the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts this summer has been involved in our Designing for the Future  competition for the past couple of years.

Chloe loved the course at Brighton : “What was especially useful, she said, was a research and design competition run by Philippa Aldrich, a trustee of the University of Brighton Foundation, who founded The Future Perfect Company which champions inclusive designs for an ageing population. Chloe said: “This really helped me decide that I wanted to help people through my work.”"

Chloe “wants to continue involving the elderly in her designs: “I am interested in co-designing with the older population, using technology, and finding out where interventions can be designed and made to help them.”"

It is fantastic to see the Designing for the Future Competition beginning to influence the next generation of designers to think about the challenges and opportunities that our rapidly ageing population present.

Click here to read the article in full. 

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Designing for the Future” run by The Future Perfect Company in conjunction with the University of Brighton is now in its fourth year and encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting our ageing population – and to create innovative and attractive and designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active and independent lives.

Can musical memory boxes help support people with dementia?

We have been running the Designing for the Future student design competition with the University of Brighton for three years now and it is both hugely satisfying and exciting to see how the students go on to develop their design thinking.

Chloe Meineck first became involved with the project in 2011 when she entered The Hub, a multi sensory device designed for people with dementia to store electronically the soundtrack of their life including favourite music, people’s voices and ambient sounds.

Chloe contiuned her work on dementia into her final year, producing the Music Memory Box which uses different types of stimuli –  touch, sound, scent and sight  – to retrieve someone’s identity and reconnect them with the family and friends they have lost through dementia

Co-designed with user, Barbara, each object in the Music Memory Box represents a person Barbara treasures. For instance, the small square of tweed reminds her of her grandfather’s itchy tweed trousers which she used to sit on as a young girl, whilst they pruned the sweetpeas in his garden. This tweed is impregnated with the scent of sweetpeas, to heighten the memory and matched with music to heighten the effectiveness of the memory trigger.

The project uses the same technology as oyster cards, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Chloe Meineck with Music Memory Box

Says Chloe : “I hope I can carry on making bespoke Music Memory Boxes and also I want to broaden the process out and run workshops with large groups of people in homes, making communal boxes. I am also interested in co designing with the older population in regards to using technology, and see where interventions can be designed and made to help them.”

One of the aims of the Designing for the Future Competition is to encourage designers to consider the challenges presented by our ageing population. With dementia, Chloe has chosen to focus on one of the most difficult of those challenges. The conversation has only just started as to the role of design in supporting people living with dementia and Chloe’s work is an important contribution to that debate.

For more information about Choe and her work, visit www.chloemeineck.co.uk

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Designing for the Future” run by The Future Perfect Company in conjunction with the University of Brighton is now in its fourth year and encourages student designers to think about the challenges and issues affecting our ageing population – and to create innovative and attractive and designs which allow older people to continue to live enjoyable, active and independent lives.