Back in July, I got to be part of something I had only really heard about before joining the OU, the Annual Design Show. Funnily enough, the show was also one of the first things I attended when I started here last year, before I had properly found my feet or even met most of the team. This time, I was on the other side of it, helping with the show and giving a short talk partway through the evening rather than just watching from the audience.
What surprised me most was actually everything that happened behind the scenes. I knew the show involved a website, catalogue, opening presentation and, of course, bringing together all of the student work, but I hadn’t realised that the whole thing had been designed and built by a small student team in under a month. I had assumed something of that scale would take much longer and involve far more people. Instead, a handful of students just made it happen, alongside everything else they were already studying.
The winning projects were such a mix, which was probably what I enjoyed most about them. Anastasia Kkama Surfaro won the overall prize for Laundry Mate, a colour-coded laundry organiser designed for people with arthritis or limited dexterity, which she described as a labour of love.
Melanie Wasley’s Inflata-riser came from noticing care home residents struggling with something most of us probably never think twice about: getting up from a seated position. Her response was an inflatable cushion designed to help people rise more easily.
Mark Whitfield drew on years of his own engineering experience to build a wheelchair that can also be used as a walker, without a single welded joint.
And then there was Vicky Lines’ project, which I think is still the one I keep coming back to. She turned a discarded car part into an Asian-inspired stringed instrument. I loved it partly because it wasn’t trying to solve a conventional design ‘problem’. It was inventive, unexpected and playful, and it didn’t need to justify itself by being anything more than that.
This year I was also lucky enough to be part of the design team behind the show, alongside Georgy Holden, Nicole Lotz, Jade Cooper, Lilian Boye Kotey, Lilija Zvairaityte and Anastasia Kkama Surfaro. It was actually my first proper introduction to the wider design community here.
One detail I only really thought about afterwards was that Anastasia, this year’s overall winner, was part of the design team too. So while working with all of us to put the show together, she was also quietly helping to build the very exhibition that her own project would eventually go on to win!
During the evening, I gave a short talk about one of my own projects, the Willow Bed, and a question that has stayed with me since I was in my twenties: whose knowledge actually counts when we talk about ‘good’ design?
It is something I have kept returning to through my research and design practice, particularly when thinking about traditional and situated forms of knowledge that do not always fit neatly within conventional ideas of design expertise. Looking at the range of work students had produced that evening, it felt like a particularly fitting place to ask that question.
Vera Hale followed with an update on this year’s OU Sustanthon, where students had less than a week to respond to real briefs from the National Trust and West London Waste Authority and turn them into working proposals. Both organisations were genuinely surprised by what the students managed to produce in such a short time.
I have now been at the OU for just over a year, and looking back, the Annual Design Show feels a little bit like coming full circle. Last year I was watching it as someone completely new to the OU and this year I was helping make it happen.
But I think the best part of the evening was simply watching the students talk about their own work. Some were confident, some were nervous, and some looked genuinely surprised that they had won anything at all. There was something really lovely about seeing them have that moment after all the work that had gone into getting there.
A big thank you to Georgy, Nicole, Jade, Lilian, Lilija and Anastasia for having me as part of the team this year, and for doing so much of the hard work that made the show happen.
I’m already looking forward to seeing what next year’s students come up with.
The full exhibition is still live online and is well worth a look if you haven’t already: https://www.oudesignshow.org/
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