Design Club has launched a quirky new range of colourful stickers, a bag charm, and a sketchbook for the Young V&A shop, inspired by the Making Egypt exhibition. This playful family of products has been co-designed by a group of 11–14-year-olds from Oaklands Secondary School in Tower Hamlets.
Design Club is an annual collaborative project with the V&A retail team, designers, and curators. Each year, students are inspired by exhibition themes at Young V&A to create designs for a new range of products. They explore the creative process and learn how to bring a product to market through a live brief.
Making Egypt curators Trish Roberts and Dr Benjamin Hinson guided the group through the themes of the exhibition, taking them on a journey along the Nile. The students were introduced to concepts such as symbolism and emulation and explored the Egyptian aesthetic — including how composition was created using grids, stacking to represent perspective, symmetry, mirroring, and the depiction of main characters.
Design Club engaged in a series of creative workshops to develop the new product range. Local illustrator Jacqueline Colley helped the students explore the symbolic meanings of animals and plants in the ancient world. Inspired by their own surroundings, the young designers created illustrations based on animals, insects, and birds commonly found in East London.
Working alongside Dr Mala Siamptani, the students learned how ancient materials such as breccia were often emulated in clay with patterned finishes. They then created their own contemporary versions using Jesmonite, producing brightly coloured terrazzo and marbled pieces.
The colourful, swirling marbled patterns became the backdrop for the designs, while the illustrations — featuring snails, a fox, a pigeon, a familiar East London parakeet, and a rather tempestuous squirrel — became the main characters of the range.
You can see Making Egypt at Young V&A in Bethnal Green until 2 November 2025. Support the next generation of local talent and snap up the new Design Club range before it’s gone!
