Starting from 1 April 2020, the Design Museum will be launching a new calendar of online activities, from brushing up on your design history and virtually visiting the studios of leading designers to learning sessions for all ages.

Divided into four key strands – Young Design Museum, Into the Archive, Learn with the Design Museum and #DesignDispatches – the Design Museum will inspire home learners, from schoolchildren to adults.

Tim Marlow, Chief Executive and Director said:
“We feel that it is more important than ever to connect to people’s lives and passions at a time when much of the population is in isolation and seeking meaningful engagement. This is a moment to reach out, to be responsive and to ask questions. We hope that our new Digital Design Calendar will connect with those at home looking for inspiration.”

Josephine Chanter, Director of Audiences said:
"The Digital Design Calendar builds on the regularity of our weekly #FontSunday activity (which has been regularly trending on Twitter for almost a decade). The temporary closure of our building means that we can turn the museum 'inside out' and scale up our digital output to offer new daily content from across our learning, curatorial and collection teams. During this crisis we want to share with our audiences a time of experimentation, reflection and understanding and hopefully offer some solace in the optimism of design."

#DesignDispatches kicked off last week with a live studio tour from Christopher Raeburn, which organically generated over 21,000 views. The series will continue with the Design Museum’s Director, Tim Marlow, in conversation with a wide range of leading designers and architects. Every Saturday, viewers can enjoy a snapshot into the lives and work of familiar faces from the world of design, fashion and architecture.

Whether you’ve found yourself in charge of your children’s school day, or are simply after some creative fun to fill an afternoon, check out the museum’s family and school resources brought together online under Young Design Museum. These activities will bring the world of design to life through everyday materials and household objects, including a collaboration with BBC Studios Hey Duggee.

Get behind the scenes of the museum’s exhibitions, past, present and future, as well as insights into what’s going on across the design world with the Design Museum’s new Into the Archive series or why not use this time to upskill with the new free Learn with the Design Museum programme – which kicks off with top tips and reads from responsible fashion designer Christopher Raeburn.

Recognising the difference good design can make to inclusivity, access remains at the heart of the Design Museum's ethos and therefore its online programme. Over the next few weeks, the museum will be partnering with designers and organisations who share this value and promote design for all.

Each week the full programme will be updated on the Design Museum’s new Digital Design Calendar page here.

Digital Design Calendar for Week 1 starting 1 April includes -

Thursday –
Into the Archive #ThrowbackThursday, Fred the Ferrari Visits the Museum (video)

Friday –
#Architecture Friday with Camille Walala

Saturday –
#DesignDispatches with Morag Myerscough

Sunday –
Young Design Museum Create + Make, Build Your Own Rocking Horse and Font Sunday

Monday –
Young Design Museum, Crowd Sourced Wall Lesson Plan (video + primary and secondary school worksheets)

Tuesday –
Learn with the Design Museum, Raeburn Responsible Fashion Design Starter Pack

Wednesday –
Learn with the Design Museum – Lunch and Learn to be announced shortly

- Ends -

NOTES TO EDITOR

Press Enquiries:
Rioco Green, Media and PR Manager, the Design Museum
E: rioco.green@designmuseum.org

Design Ventura Online Mini Challenge
Can you come up with a new, creative and commercially viable product for the Design Museum Shop to be sold for around £10? Discover this fun design challenge for the whole family, with prizes awarded weekly. Find out more >  https://bit.ly/3aFkCHa

Digital Overview
The Design Museum is the fourth most followed museum in the world on Twitter, with just over 4.3 million followers. It has 418,000 followers on Instagram and 440,000 on Facebook.

The Digital Design Calendar builds on the new digital appetite for the museum’s digital content since closing the building. Original content shared on IGTV in the past month includes ‘An Evolution of Childbirth’ based on the work of Designer in Residence, Stiliyana Minkovska – which has generated 44,429 organic views so far. A studio tour with  responsible fashion designer Christopher Raeburn has generated 20,700 organic views and ‘Welcome to the World of Graphene’, showcasing the work of Designer in Residence Marta Giralt, with 11,200 organic views.

About the Design Museum:
The Design Museum is the world’s leading museum devoted to contemporary architecture and design. Its work encompasses all elements of design, including fashion, product and graphic design. Since it opened its doors in 1989 the museum has displayed everything from an AK-47 to high heels designed by Christian Louboutin. It has staged over 100 exhibitions, welcomed over five million visitors and showcased the work of some of the world’s most celebrated designers and architects including Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Jonathan Ive, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray and Dieter Rams. On 24 November 2016, The Design Museum relocated to Kensington, west London. Leading architect John Pawson converted the interior of a 1960s modernist building to create a new home for the Design Museum giving it three times more space in which to show a wide range of exhibitions and
significantly extend its learning programmes.

designmuseum.org