Babyshop's double-sided pencils turn colouring time into a colour-blindness test

Colour blindness affects roughly 300 million people, yet in the Middle East it is rarely discussed and usually detected late, when young children cannot report it. Babyshop wanted to live its 'best start in life' purpose and support inclusive education on the ground.

One pencil end shows the rainbow as seen, the other as colour-blind kids see it; if a child colours without noticing the two ends differ, the set has flagged a symptom.

Co-created with Moorfields Eye Hospital, each double-sided pencil shows the rainbow as regular vision sees it on one end and as colour-blind vision sees it on the other. Launched on Colour Blind Awareness Day, 6 September 2022, 30,000 sets went to schools and clinics, where teachers colour with children and watch whether the two ends match.

The first phase detected colour blindness in 14 children after deploying 30,000 pencil sets across schools and clinics; the idea later won a Loeries 2024 Silver for industrial product design, two D&AD 2025 Wood Pencils, the PHNX 2025 Grand Prix in Design and a London International Awards 2024 finalist.

Around 300 million people are colour blind, and most discover it late in life. Young children cannot describe what they don't know, so the condition often goes unnoticed in classrooms — in the Middle East it is barely discussed at all.

Babyshop and Publicis Middle East, working with Moorfields Eye Hospital, rebuilt the familiar pencil set into a detection tool. Each double-sided pencil carries the colour spectrum as regular vision sees it on one end and as colour-blind vision sees it on the other; when a child colours and cannot tell the two ends apart, parents and teachers see the symptom instantly.

Launched on Colour Blind Awareness Day, 6 September 2022, the initiative put 30,000 sets into schools and clinics across the region. The British School of Dubai and the Global Indian International School Dubai joined the first wave, turning routine colouring time into an early screening moment.

The rollout detected colour blindness in 14 children in its first phase, and the idea travelled through the award circuit — a Loeries 2024 Silver for industrial product design, two D&AD 2025 Wood Pencils, the PHNX 2025 Grand Prix in Design and a London International Awards 2024 finalist.

The insight was structural: kids with colour blindness can't report it, so the test had to be something they'd use anyway — colouring pencils.

Each pencil encodes the diagnosis in its design, so no extra equipment, expertise or awkward screening conversation is needed.

Co-creating with Moorfields gave the product clinical credibility, which is why schools and clinics accepted 30,000 sets.

Launching on Colour Blind Awareness Day gave the initiative a news hook that carried it beyond the product itself.

When the audience can't report a problem, design a trigger that reveals it through ordinary behaviour — the everyday pencil set became a diagnostic moment no parent had to be asked to administer.

ColourCheck detected 14 cases in its initial deployment of 30,000 pencil sets, and the product kept winning: a Loeries 2024 Silver in Industrial & Product Design plus Bronzes in social impact and in-store, two D&AD 2025 Wood Pencils, the PHNX Awards 2025 Grand Prix in Design, and a London International Awards 2024 finalist. Babyshop used the initiative to demonstrate its 'every child deserves the best start in life' purpose, and the pencil set became a template for turning everyday objects into inclusive screening tools.