Students rethink everyday objects

Creative students at the University of Wolverhampton have been redesigning everyday objects as part of a special project with a top London museum.

Seven School of Art and Design students have been shortlisted by the Design Museum in London as part of a live brief for their final year projects.

Innovative ideas from the BA (Hons) Graphic Design students for the ‘Design Factory’ project included a new garment care symbol, a simplified TV remote control using a smartphone app and a re-design of the traffic light labelling system for food packaging.

They will now represent the University at an event at the Design Museum on 14 May 2012 when they will meet leading international designers, collaborate with one of the designers from the Designs of the Year Awards 2012 and meet other shortlisted students from international universities.

In addition, a selection of the Design Factory submissions will be showcased on the Design Museum website. The students are Alex Steer, Ben Pritchard, Christian Leoci, Katie Howell, Bradley Ankers, Raymond Chan and Caroline Gibson.

Senior Lecturer, Julia Chidley, said: “We’re delighted with the success of our students in this live brief with the Design Museum. The students were invited to question the unquestioned and propose innovative and critical redesigns of the everyday, and they met the brief with creative and exciting ideas.

“This is a great opportunity for them to gain experience of working on live briefs and to network with leading designers.”

For the project, the students visited the Design Museum’s This is Design exhibition which looks at mass production and how design has shaped the modern world. They were tasked with selecting three examples from the exhibition to analyse and research.

For the second part of the brief they identified an everyday, possibly ‘unnoticed’ piece of design, whether 2D, 3D, digital or package, that they wished to challenge for functionality and innovate to add to the quality of everyday life.

ENDS

For more information please contact Vickie Warren in the Media Relations Office on 01902 322736