Yuri Suzuki announced as the brief setter for Design Ventura 2021

Sound artist, designer and electronic musician Yuri Suzuki has been announced as the brief setter for Design Ventura, the Design Museum’s annual design and enterprise competition for schools. The competition runs in partnership with Deutsche Bank’s global youth engagement programme Born to Be.

Design Ventura aims to bring the business of design to life for UK state secondary schools. It looks to support design and technology and art and design programmes across the country by providing free online learning resources, workshops, webinars and live events. The objective is to offer a real-world design and enterprise learning opportunity.

Yuri Suzuki’s practice explores the realms of sound through designed pieces that examine the relationship between people and their environments - questioning how both music and sound evolve to create personal experiences. In 2018, Suzuki was appointed a partner at Pentagram, the world’s largest independently owned design studio, where he began working as an artist in the London studio.

"I chose to be Design Ventura 2021-22 brief setter because I wanted to give a different perspective. I am not your standard designer. I wanted to show that there is no one standard way to be a designer, there is not only one way to be a creative entrepreneur. There are so many different ways to be a creator,” Suzuki says.

"We are delighted that Yuri Suzuki is this year's brief setter. As an artist and designer whose work ranges from apps to products to large scale installations, we feel that Yuri's accessible, interactive, and thought-provoking work, will provide a great source of inspiration for this year's students,” adds Fiona MacDonald, head of learning at the Design Museum.

Suzuki unveiled his video brief for the 12th edition of the annual prize, inviting teams of students from the UK and globally to design a new product for the Design Museum Shop that improves everyday life by addressing a social, educational or environmental issue and retails for around £15. Ten shortlisted state school teams will be invited to Deutsche Bank’s London head office to pitch their ideas to a panel of expert judges including Suzuki, senior Deutsche Bank employees and the Design Museum’s Head of Retail.

One winning team will be selected to develop their designs with a professional agency before their product is manufactured and sold in the Design Museum Shop. The money raised from the sales of the winning product will go to a charity of the students’ choosing.

“Deutsche Bank is proud to continue supporting Design Ventura. With the World Economic Forum listing problem solving, critical thinking and creativity amongst the top ten skills needed for work in 2025, it’s clear to see how the programme helps students’ readiness for their futures in work. We also know from the programme’s in-depth evaluation that almost 100% of teachers see an improvement in the confidence and ambition of their students,” says Lareena Hilton, managing director, global head of brand communications & CSR at Deutsche Bank.

Now in its 12th year, the programme has seen over 108,200 students participate to develop their creative and entrepreneurial skills by designing and developing a product for a real target audience. The 2020 winning team - Heckmondwike Grammar School - designed ‘Sow Beautiful’, a flower seed cannon used to grow flowers and create a source of pollen for bees and will be available from the Design Museum Shop from this Autumn.