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the helen hamlyn research centre: design for our future selves the royal college of art: postgraduate art and design

DBA Inclusive Design Challenge 2005

Royal College of Art, 23 February 2005

It was the fifth birthday of the DBA Inclusive Design Challenge but familiarity with this well established event in the design calendar did nothing to dim the sense of excitement and anticipation that gripped the Upper Gulbenkian Gallery on 23 February. Five teams were competing for the 2005 DBA Inclusive Design Challenge Award. As usual, the ideas on display were stunningly diverse from a vacuum cleaner to a communications toolkit for dyslexic designers.

Kay Allen

There was however one clear winner. Kingston-based design consultancy Pearson Matthews took the prize for their radical rethink of the humble sticking plaster that allows users of all abilities to apply it with one hand. The small team at Lacock Gullam were also commended for their redesign of the bus shelter environment.

Guest speaker at the event was Kay Allen, Head of Diversity at British Sky Broadcasting - a leading figure in the movement to embed diversity policies at the corporate level and ensure that they are backed by a strong commercial rationale. "I would make a plea to all young designers" she said "Please get it right in the first place and I won't have to keep fixing it later on."

Tom Yendell of the Mouth and Foot Paintings Artists thanked the design teams for the quality of their creative responses to the challenge, the inspiration he had received from them and encouraged them to include people with disabilities right from the start of the design process.

Tom Yendell

On behalf of the judges, Sean Lewis of the Design Business Association presented the prize to Stuart May of Pearson Matthews and said how impressed they had been by the sheer diversity of the projects and the level of commitment in terms of the resources, time and people the teams have put into the Challenge. "The bar is being raised further each year and the number of patents generated by the projects tonight is a great indicator of the quality within the shortlist."