Dazzle Racer – Design Museum

Design Ventura is an annual competition set by the Design Museum, challenging students aged 13–16 to create a new product to be manufactured and sold in the Design Museum shop. Our brief was to work with the 2015 winning team, a group of students from Finchley Catholic High School, to help develop, design and brand their winning product – a new take on the cotton reel racer.

At workshops with the students we decided to take influence from dazzle ships which, during World War I, were painted with vibrant patterns as a means of disruptive camouflage. We wrote a piece of generative script allowing us to create 300 unique, bold and colourful patterns to wrap the racers. When spun these patterns have an optical illusion effect. We carried the theme through packaging, a brochure and stickers for customising.