Showcase 2025 Student Spotlight: Luke Johnson
Student Spotlight featuring BA (Hons) Product Design student Luke Johnson and his project 'Think Tiles'.
By Jon Duckworth | Published on 10 April 2025
Categories: Student Showcase; School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment;
The Project
ThinkTiles is a primary school learning tool designed to teach pupils both maths and English in a way that is inclusive to pupils with colour vision deficiency (CVD).
Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD) is a condition of the eye that affects how a person perceives colour. It can range in mildness depending on the impacted coloured cone cell in the eye and it impacts on average 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 females.
With consideration to those users, the coloured cubes have been labelled with the name of colour for easy colour identification, which have then been printed on white plastic tiles to ensure that an individual with CVD is able to read the information clearly. These tiles can then be interchanged with other tiles such as number tiles; to allow different areas within English or mathematics to be taught (such as bar charts and sums).
Statistics show that on average one in a class of 30 pupils are colour blind.
The inspiration behind the project
As a colour-blind designer himself, Luke felt that CVD is a topic within product design that is rarely explored. He wanted to find out how the condition impacts the lives of individuals and identify ways of solving common overarching problems..
Through speaking with various individuals with CVD, it became clear to Luke that one of the biggest impacted areas for individuals was within schools, especially primary schools as this is where pupils are first taught about colours. Statistics show that on average one in a class of 30 pupils are colour blind and that around 27,000 pupils with CVD every year will be starting school in the new academic year.
The design initially started off looking at creating bar charts in a colour-blind friendly way as charts are an element in schools that are significantly difficult for pupils with CVD to understand. However, it soon became clear to Luke that the block system he had started working on for the bar charts could incorporate many more functions that would make it more appropriate for use within primary schools for teaching different topics within Maths and English.
The brick has multiple uses for teaching maths and English to primary school children with CVD.
The project experience
Luke says: "This project overall has been very enjoyable to work on, especially at the start as there was a lot of idea exploration involved due to the topic being quite broad. The development process for this design has been very prototype-intensive as there are a lot of small details that needed to be figured out to ensure that the design was safe for pupils in primary schools to use. This meant ensuring that the design met all the necessary UK BSI standards for toy design.
"The workload has been much more significant than any of my previous projects due to the scale and timeline for this project, which has taken a while to get used to, but it’s really rewarding now to see all the hard work begin to pay off as the finished outcome becomes reality."
Luke Johnson - BA (Hons) Product Design
Being part of NTU
About his time at NTU, Luke says that it has "been amazing" from the outset. "There’s a really good balance of both set design briefs as well as self-directed design briefs, which allow you to learn about topics or areas within design that you may have not learnt about before, whilst also enabling you to pursue areas of design that you are passionate about."
He says: "The tutors are really enthusiastic and dedicated in the work they do and in helping you with your work at every step of the way. The same can be said for the workshop technicians who are incredibly helpful with providing manufacturing guidance and technical insights."
Luke considers the final two years of the course to have been the most significant in terms of gaining and developing his design skills. "Being on placement in my third year allowed me to develop strong prototyping and manufacturing skills which directly impacted my two design projects in final year. My time management and research analysis skills were also some notable skills that were developed over my third year. It allowed me to plan and research my projects a lot more efficiently in my final year.
"I would say the most memorable moment for me has been finding my passion and confidence for both model making and prototyping, through this project and my commercial lighting project. When I first joined BA Product Design in first year, I wasn’t the most confident when it came to model making and I was quite scared to use the workshop.
"However, after being on placement for my third year and getting to prototype and manufacture a lot of fully functioning prototypes, my confidence with prototyping began to build significantly. Then moving into final year, I specifically chose projects that pushed me to make physical prototypes so that I could further increase those prototyping skills I had gained from placement. Now I’ve been able to produce two amazing design projects, both with fully functioning physical prototypes."
Closing remarks
Luke encourages anyone thinking of studying BA (Hons) Product Design at NTU to "absolutely go for it". He believes the course provides many opportunities to explore different areas of the discipline, helping students find where there design passions lie.
He offers the following advice to new students: "Try to make the most of any opportunity provided, as you never know where one project or one conversation may lead. Don't be afraid to take risks as these will push you to be a better designer, and, if you can, I would encourage anyone on the course to try and secure a placement for their third year. My placement year had a massive impact for me in developing manufacture and prototyping skills for my final year, so if you can identify an area you want to improve upon before starting your final year, use your placement year as a year to build on that skill."