Student Design Awards winners
See the winners of the most recent years of the Student Design Awards competition.
Student Design Awards winners 2018-19
The awards have been running since 1924. In 2018-19, we received entries from students studying in 25 countries across 5 continents.
The Circular Emergency
Sponsored by Philips, with additional support from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Design a product, service or system that uses circular design principles to make emergency medical care more effective.
Winner: Maire Kane & Hannah Grogan, National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Project: Personal Patient Pack PPP, a product pack that facilitates medical devices to stay with the patient and be reused throughout their journey whilst reducing waste by 67%
Award: Winner of Philips Award of £2500
Highly Commended
Hannah Rayner, Loughborough University (Project: Apto)
Grand Station Designs
Sponsored by Network Rail
Design a way to reinvigorate and/or repurpose an ageing commuter train station building, utilising its existing structures and resources.
Winner: Sophie Cane, Norwich University of the Arts
Project: Create Together, a community design project including a creative workshop kit for local groups and a station exhibition, using materials relevant to Acle town’s heritage to bring the community, commuters and train station closer together.
Award: Winner of RSA Fellows’ Award of £2000
Highly Commended
Paz Moreno, London Metropolitan University (Project: Green Stations)
Commended
Ellie Boggans, London Metropolitan University (Project: Repair Station)
Citizens as Shapers
Sponsored by Twitter
Design a solution that harnesses digital tools to increase the quantity and quality of citizens' participation in democratic processes.
Winner: Lucy Davidson, Kingston University
Project: Buoy, a service that utilises increasing levels of internet and smartphone usage amongst homeless people, connecting them with politicians and UK Parliament via forums and a reformed voting system for those with no fixed address.
Award: Winner of Twitter Award of £2000
Highly Commended
Thom Farrell, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins (Project: legislation.gov.uk redesign)
David Friedmann, Northumbria University (Project: Poli)
Beyond the Kitchen Table
Sponsored by Blum UK, Blanco, Symphony, Kessebohmer, The Kitchen Education Trust, and the National Innovation Centre for Ageing.
Develop an inclusive kitchen product or spatial solution that enables people of diverse ages and needs to prepare and eat food, entertain, engage in hobbies or work and enjoy life together.
Winner: Sara Alber, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins
Project: Touchpoint, a plate and bowl designed for people with ADHD to direct their focus onto the food they are eating through tactile stimuli. Touchpoint creates comfort and confidence to eat in company and helps prevent eating disorders.
Award: Winner of Industry Award of £1,000
Winner: Ben Capern, University of the West of England
Project: Flow, a new stabilising mixing bowl aiding cake preparation for those with low dexterity. Flow offers independence to both children and impaired parents, allowing them to complete recipes and share a more enjoyable bonding experience through cooking together.
Award: Joint Winner of Industry Award of £500
Winner: Louis Farnsworth, De Montfort University
Project: Core, a range of kitchen safety knives designed to protect users from cuts and lacerations. The Core range is intended to boost confidence among visually impaired people and users of diverse ages within the kitchen environment.
Award: Joint Winner of Industry Award of £500
Highly Commended
Jasper Heymans, Luca School of Arts Campus C-mine, Belgium (Project: MOOVE)
Commended
Kamiel Ceyssens, Luca School of Arts Campus C-mine, Belgium (Project: Monoaid)
Martina Spinacè & Giorgio Vivian, ISIA Roma Design (Project: Tony)
Alone Together
Sponsored by the Marketing Trust, with additional support from The Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Accounting for how different groups in society are affected by loneliness, design a way to reduce its impact on one or more of the following: physical health, mental health, or access to services.
Winner: Faye Sedgewick, Northumbria University
Project: Soften the traces of time: An intergenerational living scheme for older people in Newcastle facing the challenges of social segregation, loneliness and maintaining independence.
Award: Winner of Marketing Trust Award of £2000
Winner: Elliot Butler, Loughborough University
Project: Cove, a safe digital environment for young carers to meet, share experiences and advice. Accompanied by a haptic sensory wearable, to enable young carers to keep in touch with their relative at home, providing them with reassurance and confidence to expand their social circle.
Award: Winner of CIM Award of £1000
Highly Commended
Bethany Richardson, University of Lincoln (Project: Flock Radio ‘Mental Health in Agriculture’)
Commended
Charlotte Barry, Chelsea College of Art and Design (Project: Oro)
Brady Hansen, Middlesex University (Project: The Loneliness Emoji – BA Product Design, Middlesex University)
Stephanie Ward, Kingston University (Project: Recollection – BA Illustration, Kingston University)
Harvesting Health
Sponsored by the RSA Food, Farming & Countryside Commission and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, with additional support from NCR.
Design a product, system or service which uses sustainable food and farming to help improve people's health or wellbeing.
Winner: Scarlet Pughe and Jessica Coleman, Kingston University
Project: The Moving Market, a non-profit organisation that brings local farm produce closer to you by purchasing farmers’ produce at a fair price and selling it on a truck which operates a circular route in rural areas. The system provides temporary employment for jobseekers and educates the local community about seasonal produce.
Award: Joint Winner of RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission Award of £1500
Winner: Lewis Totty, Sheffield Hallam University
Project: Food that matters, a workshop-based programme that builds confidence and mental well-being among students through food education.
Award: Joint Winner of the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission Award of £500
Winner: Kai Wang, Brunel University London
Project: Potluck, a combined cooking and storage device that encourages and simplifies the process of producing nutritious stock cubes, using avoidable food waste.
Award: Winner of NCR Placement Award
Commended
Mathilde Wittock, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins (Project: Papilla)
Hidden Figures
Sponsored by the Office for Disability Issues and Kinneir Dufort
Design a way to break down the physical, organisational or attitudinal barriers that people with hidden disabilities or impairments can face in society, to enable them to live their lives to the full.
Winner: Emma Sutcliffe, Loughborough University
Project: Travel-ease: A system that enables independent use of public transport for young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders. It provides the user with consecutive short instructions in an accessible format and reassures the carer or parent by providing discrete feedback through a wearable.
Award: Winner of Kinneir Dufort Placement Award and Joint Winner of The ODI Award of £500
Winner: Emer Fitzpatrick, Grace Hickey, Kate McCauley, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Republic of Ireland
Project: Unseen, An awareness campaign for all hidden disabilities that aims to bring visibility back to people via a discrete wearable asterisk symbol.
Award: Joint Winner of The ODI Award of £1000
Commended
Maanasa Mahesh, Virginia Commonwealth University (Project: Seat Seeker)
Jack Strachan, Loughborough University (Project: Empowering Employees with Autism in the Workplace)
Take Leave
Sponsored by Legacy Funds to the RSA.
Design a system, service or campaign to encourage or enable parents, employers or society more widely to embrace Shared Parental Leave.
Winner: Hamza Qureshi, Riley Nicholas, & Frank Mavin, University of Bristol
Project: MentorMe, a system designed to temporarily replace parents taking shared parental leave with unemployed or underemployed graduates seeking quality work experience.
Award: Joint Winner of RSA Award of £1,500
Winner: Hanna Pimanava, University of Lincoln
Project: Early Parental Plan (EPP): A system solution which integrates with the workplace pension; EPP enables people who may want to have children in the future to save in advance, so that if/when they become a parent they can take shared parental leave without having to worry about finances.
Award: Joint Winner of RSA Award of £500 and Winner of 6 month membership at Makerversity
Commended
Liam Mead and George Harrild, Kingston University (Project: The Grand Petition)
Living and Dying Well
Sponsored by NHS England
Conceive and produce an animation to clarify and illuminate the audio content provided, which explores why talking about illness and planning for death is important for people affected by serious health conditions.
Winner: Emma McKell, Arts University Bournemouth
Project: Passing Conversations: An animation that brings to life everyday inanimate objects facing fears and concerns in the run up to death, aiming to encourage a more positive approach to this challenging subject in a light-hearted and playful manner.
Watch the animation on Vimeo now.
Award: Winner of NHS England Award of £2000
Moving Pictures
Sponsored by Legacy Funds to the RSA, with additional support from Natracare and RSA Events.
Conceive and produce an animation to accompany one of the two selected audio files that will clarify, energise and illuminate the content.
Winner: Leanne Dooley, Limerick School of Art & Design
Project: The shape of sexism: An animation that illuminates Everyday Sexism, showing the contrast in opportunities for men and women through illustrated characters and texts that flow and shift to represent maps, media apps and newspapers.
Watch the animation on YouTube
Award: Winner of RSA Staff Choice Award of £500, and the Natracare Award of £1000
Winner: Julen Goni, Edinburgh College of Art
Project: The future is in your hands now: An animation that illuminates ‘How to be More Pirate’ through witty and friendly purple and pink characters who are moving away from frustration towards hope.
Watch the animation on YouTube
Award: Joint Winner of RSA Award of £500
Winner: Arthur Kearns, Birmingham City University
Project: How to be More Pirate: An animation that illuminates ‘how to be more pirate’, portraying the concept through watercolour illustrations that showcase a miserable character journeying through the daily routine and then shifting to a different lifestyle.
Watch the animation on YouTube now.
Award: Joint Winner of RSA Award of £500
RSA Student Design Awards
Our competition for emerging designers who want to make a difference.