About

We believe the future needs people-centred designers to make the world a better place.

A brief history of Design Club

2024

  • June: in the process of dissolving the company.
  • Website and resources will stay as is for the foreseeable future.

2023

  • Updated the Design Club website: now contains a curated directory of design tools for young people, as per strategy shift mentioned below.

2022

  • Slow start to the year after a pre-Christmas rise in Covid cases.
  • With heavy (but hopeful) hearts, we made the decision to shift focus.
  • Our new strategy is to create a curated directory of design tools for kids - products, projects and programmes that get kids doing design and design thinking.

2021

2020

2019

  • We supported mentors to run 15 after school clubs, including the first Design Clubs outside London, in Blackpool and Dundee. You can Meet the mentors on our blog.
  • Our weekend squad ran pop-up clubs at Science Museum, Kingston University and MozFest.
  • Reached 500 children and had more than 800 people register an interest in mentoring.
  • Started hosting peer-led Meetups and recognised our Super Mentors.
  • Won funding from The Funding Network. And Growth Supporters helped us grow.

2018

  • We set up as a Community Interest Company in April. We're limited by guarantee, meaning all profits go back into growing Design Club. Founding supporters came on board.
  • Reached more than 500 children through a mix of after school and weekend clubs.
  • Ran our first mentor Meetups and got accepted as one of Makerversity's Makers with a Mission.
  • Partnered with BMJ, WIRED and Token Dad to try new formats.

2017

  • Reached over 150 children through a network of 50 volunteers.
  • Partnered with Marvel and Moo to develop the learning experience. Partnered with CoderDojo and iOi to deliver weekend Design Clubs.

How Design Club is free

We're a Community Interest Company limited by Guarantee

This means we're a non-profit. We've raised some money through grants from The Funding Network, Mozilla and Grant for the Web.

We're also backed by the design industry to inspire the next generation of design thinking. We've raised some funds through Founding Supporters, Growth Supporters and Reboot Supporters. See our Supporters page.

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