Follow your passion says Designing for the Future judge

As we approach the judging of this year’s “Designing for the Future” student design competition, we catch up with one of last year’s judges, designer Richard Child whose career has taken an unexpected turn.

At the start of December 2012, I made the decision to leave Hymid R&D. A company I co-founded late August 2011. It was a difficult decision as I’d been developing our first product (Kinex) for over a year. The project was very important to me and I’d met some great people during the process.

Music Memory Box maker new Designer in Residence at Design Museum

Chloe Meineck - Music Memory Box

Great news. Chloe Meineck, one of our Designing for the Future alumni, has just been named as one of the new Designers in Residence at the Design Museum in London where she will be developing her Music Memory Box for people with dementia.

Chloe follows in the footsteps of one of our previous Designing for the Future winners, Harry Trimble who was Designer in Residence last year. 

Chloe has had a busy year, having just completed a Crafts Council residency and been nominated for a Santander University of Brighton Enterprise Award.

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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.

Inclusive Eastbourne – 6 months on and going strong

Eastbourne - designed for all

Last October, I reported on the launch of an innovative marketing campaign, Eastbourne – Designed for All.

Whilst reputed to be one of the sunniest places in Britain, like all major towns, Eastbourne has felt the gloom of the economic downturn.  But rather than using traditional strategies for boosting local economies, Eastbourne plans to regenerate the town by encouraging local businesses to adopt the principles of Inclusive Design in order to improve their competitiveness and increase customer numbers, sales and satisfaction.

The Eastbourne- Designed for All campaign team believes that by principally targeting working age adults most UK businesses unnecessarily restrict their own potential to serve a larger number of customers. Inclusive Design – Design for All – proposes that attention to the needs of all ages expands market size and that a town and individual businesses offering excellence in meeting the needs of all will stand the best possible chance of thriving and attracting further wealth and investment.

So, 6 months on, how is Eastbourne – Designed for All progressing?

The good news is that 32 Eastbourne businesses are now members including Southern Railway, Visit Eastbourne and the Enterprise Shopping Centre. There has been the inaugral inclusive design workshop (on digital inclusion) with more to follow.  We are hoping to showcase some of the work from our Designing for the Future student design competition in June.

The latest project was a survey of coffee shops in Eastbourne by EDA member, Shopper Anonymous. The differentiating factors? Not the coffee and food but the service and the toilets!

It is fantastic to see progress being made and the Eastbourne – Designed for All ethos being embraced by local businesses large and small.

For more information about Eastbourne – Designed for All and how to join, visit www.eastbournedesignedforall.co.uk

Music Memory Box – progress report

Chloe Meineck and her Music Memory Box

For those of you following the progress of Chloe Meineck’s Music Memory Box, here’s a lovely video about her Crafts Council residency showing how the Music Memory Box is developing and evolving http://www.watershed.co.uk/dshed/music-memory-box

Chloe is hoping to produce the Music Memory Box in kit form which means that everyone, be they 8 or 88 will be able to have their own musical box of memories.

It is fascinating watching this product evolve from The Hub which Chloe entered into our Designing for the Future competition at the University of Brighton in 2011.

How design has the potential to help people with dementia

Tablecloth by Rita Maldonado Branco

I recently met graphic designer Rita Maldonado Branco who is interested in the potential of design to help people with dementia. Here she describes how having grandparents with dementia informed her graduation project.

My graduation project developed last year as part of the MA Communication Design at Central Saint Martins looks at different ways in which communication design can add value to the context of Alzheimer’s disease. My two grandparents diagnosed with this disease were the main inspiration and motivation for this project.

On my mother’s side, my grandmother Rita from whom I got the name, used to be a dedicated housewife and the best cook in the family. She would always ask if we were hungry and, without waiting for an answer, she would prepare the most delicious food. Meanwhile, my grandfather Vasco (on my father’s side) was a pharmacist but also painter, ceramist, filmmaker and writer. I used to visit him and my grandmother often in their hometown, where everyday we would jump from the ceramics workshop to the pharmacy counter and then to the private cinema room in his house.

My grandmother Rita still asks if I am hungry but she doesn’t know what to do if I say I am. It is now our job to help her with the breakfast, while confused she asks where she is and, sometimes, who is that man seating next to her, to whom she is married for more than 60 years. My grandfather Vasco, before extremely active, is now passively sitting in that same corner of the couch, in his world that, even trying hard, is difficult to get in. He doesn’t remember his work — just the books he wrote because they have his name on the cover.

These and other facts made me start this project, in an attempt to understand what is this disease that slowly is stealing my grandparents, and eventually do something to help this situation.

Being a graphic designer, I believe that information design can play an important role in raising awareness and understanding about complex things. I started looking and questioning how information about dementia is provided, making visual what is usually just written.

Then, I decided to use the first-hand experience with my grandparents as part of my methodology, allowing a deeper insight into the object of study as I was already immersed in this context. I was interested in how people perceive and experience the disease, trying to find out their needs and ways in which I could address them.  As my grandparents are already in a stage that is difficult to have a conversation with them, I had to adapt my methods to the situation. Including the rest of the family was a key point throughout the project. They contributed with their insights, needs, experiences, and feedback on the several experiments I was producing.

This led to a more expressive approach, by trying to imagine how would be like to have the disease. I produced a series of outcomes that represented the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease — as if graphic design was affected by the symptom. This exercise created empathy towards the condition and made me more confident to try some ideas with my grandparents.

Memory Card Game by Rita Maldonado Branco

Based on everyday challenges for my grandparents, I developed some simple tools to stimulate and facilitate interaction between them and the rest of the family and the carers. Although inspired and tested with my grandparents, these outcomes had several iterations and were improved to be accessible to others.

I first produced a memory card game to help my grandmother remembering the family members, as well as helping the carer to encourage conversation when we are not around.

Being aware that this wouldn’t work for my grandfather, I adapted the same idea to something that he would engage with. I observed that he still reads a lot despite the disease. So I asked the family members to write him letters that were compiled into a book, highlighting words that could possibly trigger memories.

Finally, as a former housewife my grandmother still wants to help out at home. But she doesn’t remember simple tasks such as laying the table. Therefore I created a tablecloth with the silhouettes of the cutlery and crockery to guide her in the task. 

I believe that dealing and caring for people with dementia requires a lot of creativity. Being a complex condition that affects one’s identity in different ways, all the efforts are useful and needed. Not only in medicine and care provision, but also supporting families to use their memories and shared identity to better stimulate their relatives with dementia. I think that design can help here, providing tools for people to use the knowledge they have about the person with dementia.

In the case of my grandparents, these tools generated some positive results. My grandmother was interested enough in the cards to spend some time on her own going through them. The carer still uses these cards to help talking about the family members. My grandfather became addicted to the book, and was reading it several times a day. One day he commented to my grandmother ‘this book is the portrait of our lives’. The drawings in the tablecloth were understood and followed by my grandmother who was able to lay the table on her own.

Although very personal and small, this case study demonstrates that design has the potential to add value to the context of dementia and that further exploration and research on this area should be taken forward.

To know more, please visit the project’s website http://cargocollective.com/ritamaldonadobranco

New designers bridging the gap between disability and fashion

Smockfrock from Liz & Ett

Fashion and disability are not two words which are necessarily seen together but I have come across a couple of new businesses lately which are trying to cross the divide.

The first is fashion label Xeni which was launched a year ago. Xeni aims to design, manufacture and retail online couture quality clothing specifically designed for women who use wheelchairs  – as well as clothing and jewellery for women who have difficulty with the manipulation of clasps, buttons and zips.

Xeni is the brainchild of Ann Oliver, an architect who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1990.  Finding herself needing to use a wheelchair and having difficulties with catches on jewellery, as well as buttons and zips on clothing she decided to put her creativity to good use by designing garments for fashionable disabled women to provide them with wonderful clothes to wear.

More recently I came across  Liz & Ett, which is run by American entrepreneur Liz Emery who is passionate about clothes which  “maintain dignity and style when facing health challenges”. Not always easy. However, Liz & Ett’s first design, the Smockfrock clothes protector in shocking pink and black floral, damask and even zebra prints is not only very practical but surprisingly gorgeous. I hope that Liz continues to develop the range and also starts exporting to the UK!

Great to see new ideas and designs in this much neglected area of fashion.

Product design – the next step for the independent living market

Memory Decanter by Joshua Barnes 2012

A year ago, the emerging independent living market was grappling with the dual challenges of raising awareness of the products available to help people live independently and convincing consumers of the benefits of products which often had negative associations.

This time last year there seemed to be 4 models:

1. “Trip- Advisor” style consumer-led rating system such as that proposed by consultants, Years Ahead

2. Certification system such as Age UK’s Engage Accreditation system

3. Online communities such as Enabled by Design  which is “a social business and community of people who are passionate about Design for All” who share advice and swop product information.

4. New kinds of trade associations.

Since then it is the online communities which have proliferated with new websites such as Blue Badge Style,  and Really Useful Stuff  being launched. These new sites offer a combination of editorial and user reviews and many have Amazon affiliate links. 

It is great to see this new enthusiasm for independent living products and especially the recognition that people should be able to source good attractive designs.

What is however becoming clear is that there are relatively few attractively designed products available and the next step is to encourage more designers to focus on this growing market.

Also, increasingly there is a recognition that living well as we get older is not just about having the right gadgets or being “independent”. The next generation of independent living products will be about enhancing quality of life - exploring our interconnectivity and mutual interdependence or devising products to help us capture and recall our memories or facilitate multigenerational living.  

This is where projects like our Designing for the Future competition with the University of Brighton come in. As the project evolves, we are looking for more ways to support and champion designers and innovative businesses. If you are interested in getting involved, contact me at philippa@thefutureperfectcompany.com

Competition alumnus and Eastbourne – Designed for All shortlisted in international design awards

The International Design for all Foundation Awards have just announced this year’s shortlist and I was  delighted to find featured not only Designing for the Future alumnus, Hanna Mawbey but also social enterprise, Eastbourne  – Designed for All which I have been involved with since its launch last year.

The International Design for All Foundation Awards recognise public, private and not-for-profit initiatives from across the world which aim to enable everyone to participate in society on an equal basis. In so doing, they draw international attention to examples of best practice in Design for All.

Hanna has been shortlisted for her series of aesthetically pleasing medical aids and Eastbourne – Designed for All for its groundbreaking campaign to use inclusive design as a way of generating more business for the town by being accessible to the whole community.

Best of luck to both Hanna and Eastbourne – Designed for All

Generations Talking Together – a new debate

Generations Talking Together - Housing

At the end of January, I took part in one of a series of discussions organised by media agency, Forster and United For All Ages in News International’s boardroom examining intergenerational tension.

The debates were attended by 80 people from a wide variety of backgrounds from CEOs of major charities, to the Head of Economics at a trade union, to creative thinkers and academics, to corporate representatives from a major retailer, gym, insurance provider and Britain’s biggest house building company.

Over four sessions, the panels examined some of the issues around housing, health, work and technology. How much does intergenerational tension affect these areas and what solutions can be found to help to solve this?

I was invited to take part in the session about housing which was chaired by Rosie Bennet, social affairs correspondent from The Times. Panel members included Rama Gheerawo from the RCA and Antonia Bance from Shelter as well as representatives from Barratt Homes, Places for People and the Intergenerational Campaign (the latter being rather disappointingly reasonable after their controversial “house-hoarding” report of a couple of years ago).

Given the immensity of the topic and the diversity of interests represented, the session could only begin to touch on the challenges facing young and old such as the lack of affordable homes being built and the debate as to whether homes should be used to finance care in later life.

Several solutions were proferred such as reforming the private rented sector to give families more security; considering ways of developing lifetime leases to remove so called “inheritance hoarding” and allow flexibility in housing to match life changes; scaling up homeshare schemes and encouraging co-housing models of generations sharing together.

What was clear to me was that in addressing today’s challenges, seeking to pitch one generation against the other is at best inefficient and at worst divisive. The most exciting new models being trialled are intergenerational.

What also came out of the debate was the need to re-consider the aspiration to universal home ownership. If we are truly to meet the housing demand of both old and young, maybe like many of our European contemporaries, we need to stop relying on our homes as property investments . 

For more information about the Generations Talking Together project and to find out how you can contribute to the debate, visit http://www.forster.co.uk/generations-talking-together/

RSA Student Design Awards – The Good Journey

2013 is turning out to be another busy year! As well as running the “Designing for the Future” competition with the Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, I have been invited to judge the RSA Student Design Awards and in particular the category, The Good Journey.

The Good Journey brief, sponsored by NCR, challenges students to make people look forward to their daily commute. As a former commuter (a four hours round trip on a bad day), this is a topic close to my heart and I look forward to seeing the entries.

There are a number of other interesting categories in the RSA Student Design Awards, all of which address important social, environmental and economic issues, such as the workplaces and working conditions of the future (Workplace 2030); how we can improve our understanding of water and its value in our society (Valuing Water); how design might help answer questions about spirituality (Speaking of the Spiritual); and how designers can use their communication skills to promote sustainable living (Change Makers).

I am really delighted to be asked to be involved again and will let you know what happens.   

More details about the RSA Student Design Awards can be found HERE . There is still time to enter.