Design Factory: competition for BA students

The museum's annual multi-disciplinary project for BA design students promotes the museum as an essential resource for research and design practice.

What's on offer?

Design Factory offers two research visits, a competitive judging process including professional feedback on short-listed work and the Design Factory Symposium for selected students.

Students develop conceptual responses to an exploratory and experimental design brief, spanning product, fashion, graphics and spatial design.

Tutors build Design Factory into their core curriculum, positioning the Design Museum as an essential resource for students at a critical moment in their education.

2015 Design Factory brief

This year's creative brief, Make It Different, has been developed with Designs of the Year 2015 nominee Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. With this year's brief she asks you to consider: How might we reimagine the making of things to reimagine the things themselves?

The brief draws on the museum's upcoming exhibitions, Design of the Year 2015 (until 31 March 2016), Life on Foot (until 1 November) and Designers in Residence (opening 09 September) as well as taking inspiration from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s speculative design practice and experimental approach to manufacture.

Students must submit 4 design boards answering the following three components to the brief:

Design Museum Research, Identifying and Investigating Potential Users and Design Development and Solution.

make it different

Did you miss the November registration deadline?

As part of the museum’s regional outreach programme, the following dates apply to HE courses based outside of London:

  • Regional/ Non-London registration deadline of 15 January 2016 (COP).
  • Regional/ Non-London submission deadline of 15 March 2016 (COP).

The outreach programme aims to help remove barriers to participation in the museum’s main HE programme for those based further afield, to encourage a relationship with your undergraduate courses as the museum expands its offer for HE in its new Kensington home. For more information on incentives for Regional/ Non-London colleges, please contact the Learning team on +44 (0)20 7940 8782 or use the online form.