Creating an exhibition of Design and Innovation undergraduate students’ work has been one of the most rewarding experiences I had for a while.
We called for contributions to an End of Year design exhibition. Having an ‘Annual show’ has a long tradition in other design schools, but we never had one at the OU.
This year we dared our first ever exhibition and received an amazing response from our students. From the 45 posters submitted, a panel of students and academics selected 35 to be shown in an exhibition on campus.
We invited students to curate the exhibition. Claire Lambert (T217), Amanda Jones (T217), Toby Lenehan (T317) and Ian Rees (T317) – below – took on this challenging, but as they have said, rewarding task. Dawn Correia, an AL and experienced exhibition designer supported the students to deliver an excellent result.
Around 30 guests joined us when the Dean of STEM Jose Frazer opened the exhibition. We highlighted the winning designs, Gail Everett (U101) with the board game of ‘Vicars and Tarts’, Daniel Stuart (T317) with the ‘Send me to sleep cot’, Claire Edgar with her poster campaign ‘Most waste has a second chance, your ocean doesn’t’ and a special commendation for Rebecca McFleat (T217) ‘MIIX’ educational toy.
Many visitors came up congratulating us on the exhibition. They have been very impressed with the quality of the students’ work.
A comment from Busayawan Lam our external examiner for the qualification stuck in my mind. OU students’ work is different from other design schools. Our students’ brilliant ideas do not hide behind fancy graphics or sleek models of designs. They simply communicate great thinking. Design @ OU is about well thought through and communicated ideas that convince because they are good ideas, not because they look hip or flashy.
If you have missed the exhibition, you can view the students work online: https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/design/learning-teaching/annual-show-2018/
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