Sector spotlight: product design

• Failing is part of the job; as Thomas Edison famously said, “I haven’t failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 

COMMENT: UWE

Drew Batchelor, Associate Head of Department: Design and Technology, UWE 

“Product design and development is the process of creating a new product or improving an existing one, to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers. It involves identifying the market opportunity, creating an appealing product and refining the product until it is ready for production, which can be more time-consuming than many people realise. At UWE, we believe that Product Design is about people; understanding their needs and their desires, then developing the creativity and technical understanding to turn ideas into real products.

“Bristol is a fantastic city for the creative industries and is home to wide range of Product Design companies, including; Trunki, Kinneir Dufort, Crux, Realise and Ignitec. There are also many innovative start ups in Bristol, several can be found in the Pervasive Media studio, and with Bristol being the near to Dyson, hundreds of their designers and engineers live here too.

“The University of the West of England has an award-winning degree in Product Design and a reputation for excellence in art, design and the creative industries.”

PRODUCTS

Not everyone can reinvent the vacuum cleaner, but weird and wonderful inventions, or solutions to modern problems are dreamt up every day across Bristol.

One of UWE’s Creative Product Design (CPD) graduates developed a ‘wallet for the future’ that protects contactless cards from fraud. Slightly bigger than a credit card, a woven elastic strap keeps items in place while anodised aluminium prevents sensitive details being siphoned remotely. James Dunlop developed the product – N1 – after graduating with a first degree in CPD in 2006 and founded imossi to market his product, using KickStarter to crowdfund the development costs. 

Image – Imossi’s N1 wallet which protects from RFID fraud

“I wanted to create something that was simple yet eye catching, but most importantly, protected the consumer against RFID fraud,” says James, who has gone on to design an eco-friendly tent made from recycled plastics and cardboard to tackle the abandoned tent detritus left in the wake of music festivals around the world. “It also offers that little something extra – an integrated bottle opener for when you’re caught short. A simple addition that we hope will make life that little bit easier.” 

A Bristol dad has designed a new storage container intended to cut down on the food UK households throw away each year. Sam Hearn from Knowle got fed up with the messiness of decanting part-used cans of food into containers and with how often the food gets thrown out anyway because no one can remember when it went into the fridge. His Shake n’ Store invention is a clear upright container, ridged at the top to cope with the three most common sizes of can, with a lid that can be twisted to show the day of the week on which the leftovers were stored.

He says: “Like a lot of people I hate seeing good food go to waste. But I also dislike the hassle of finding the right container and lid to hold whatever is left in my tin of tuna or sweetcorn; and I’ll probably lose track of when the leftovers went into the fridge.” He’s using Kickstarter to generate the funds to get the product into production: “I am feeling very optimistic. So far everyone who has seen Shake n’ Store has liked it and Kickstarter has a great reputation for finding backers for good ideas.”

Ed Cheney, founder of Mabboo, came across the notion of bamboo clothing when living and working in China and “trying to get my head round learning Mandarin”.

Impressed by the green material, he began to develop products around it: “The fabric [is] exceptionally soft and, because bamboo grows 100% organically, it was much more sustainable than using cotton or poly fibres. We started out with bamboo T-shirts but we’re very lucky that bamboo is such an incredible and versatile plant. We now have a range that includes sunglasses, phone covers, as well as a variety of clothing. We’re very excited to be launching watches and a bamboo-framed bike for this Christmas.”

The Trunki is probably one of Bristol’s most famous product design stories. After being mauled by the panel on Dragon’s Den, resilient founder Rob Law went on to defy the experts to become one of John Lewis’ best selling products last year.

Image – one of the Trunki designs. 

The idea came about in 1997 when Rob was given a university project to design a piece of children’s luggage. Quickly bored in the luggage department of a local shop on a research trip, he found himself in the ride-on toys section and set about finding a way to merge the two. After a first, unsuccessful attempt to launch the product through a toy company, he decided in 2005 to go it alone and Trunki began trading in 2006.

The company has now sold more than 100,000 of the colourful units, rescuing parents the world over from airport meltdowns. His small team in Clifton has since cast its magic on other products, including booster seats, toddler reins, travel toy boxes and neck supports.

CONSULTANCIES

Once ideas take seed, product design agencies can be called in to realise them. A heavily creative city, Bristol has a number of agencies working on a multitude of briefs.

Flynn Product Design is based in a modest studio in the Tobacco Factory. One recent project – Doddl, an ergonomically designed cutlery set that improves pincer grip development in children – received the Design Council Award for Innovation.

Image – the Doddl cutlery that Flynn’s agency made a reality 

“It is always satisfying helping maximize a product’s potential,” says director Chris Flynn. “This was a result of six months’ practical ergonomics investigation; happy mealtimes and less stressed parents a result.” SPHERE and CycleEye (which featured in our technology spotlight) have both been supported by Flynn Product Design; upcoming briefs include medical products and virtual reality.

Kinneir Dufort based in Fishponds is one of the biggest players in the local industry. This year the company has opened a new Centre of Excellence dedicated to work in the medical sector and won the Queens Award for Enterprise for International Trade, after more than double overseas business sales in 2012-13. “Over the past few years we have worked on a number of projects in Korea, including the Huggies MomentCam and GMarket Toaster,” says Sean Devane, Business Director. “Success in both domestic and overseas markets mean the team here in Bristol is always growing.”

Realise Design, another large design house, is based at Temple Studios and will be launching “a revolutionary cycle helmet” in a couple of months with its partners.

Smaller-scale designers include Fresh Design Works, which specialises in consumer products and furniture. “Sustainability is important to us, and we always push sustainable design solutions and options where possible,” says founder Ben Talbot. “As cities go, Bristol is arguably one of the most creative cities in the country. There is a push to make Bristol the product design capital outside of London, like the jewellery quarter in Birmingham is to jewellery. However the product design segment isn’t as big as it could be, and it isn’t nearly as big as the engineering and aerospace design segments in Bristol.”

Image – one of the designs emerging from Fresh Design Works

“The consolidation of the Cities Technology vision is getting there, the city is now buzzing entrepreneurially,” Flynn concludes. “Bristol has a thriving technology base and start-up component. It makes a lot of sense to be located here. We have been here for nearly 15 years and find we can work with international business easily and effectively while retaining a good lifestyle that feeds back into the quality of our work and imaginations.”

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