Designed for Life

Talk about battery power and people's attention automatically turns to electric vehicles, but in reality, this is one sector of a rapidly growing market. With this growth, there is an increasing need for young people to enter the sector and help design and make the power plants of the future.  In this episode, we talk with Jonty Deely Williamson, who heads up learning and development at the U...

In this episode, we talk with Nick Ford, founder of the design studio Pipsqueak and IP development specialist. Nick talks us through his school education, which took place at a time when neurodiversity was not so easily recognised or accounted for.  Several very diverse jobs followed as Nick sought to find his way in the world of work from a mechanics role that wasn't quite what he thought it...

In this episode, we start a series in which we will talk with Design & Technology Association Trustees about their careers to date and the reasons why being a Trustee of the Association and being connected to its work is important to them.  We start this series by talking with Bill Williams, Chair of D&TA Trustees. Bill is an experienced CEO across the manufacturing and engineering sectors...

This is the first episode with young graduates met recently at New Designers 2024 in London.  Alex graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a second-class BA (Hons) in Product Design. I was struck by the simplicity of his design project and the clear communication of intent within his work.  It is clear that Alex is very passionate about combating climate change and helping people to...

In this episode, we are delighted to converse with Design education specialist, advisor, teacher and CLEAPSS consultant Trudi Barrow. It seems like a strange statement, but we rarely have a design and technology teacher and leader on the podcast, so in this episode, we follow Trudi's journey into teaching but then spend a good part of the conversation talking about the subject, its challenges...

In this episode, we are delighted to talk with Dawn Foxall and Roy Ballam about the recently released paper commissioned by the Textiles Skills Centre, ' Unravelling the Fabric of Textiles Education '.   As we seek to move the subject forward, building from the bottom up being our approach at the Association, we need to carefully look at where textiles fits into primary and secondary edu...

In this conversation, we follow Gordon Fraser, Co-founder of the Marloe Watch Company, on his journey from a difficult school experience to co-founding a successful British-designed watch company.   With his Co-founder Oliver, whom he met online, the two founded The Marloe Watch Company and produced their first two watches without meeting (and living in two different countries). As the company gre...

In this episode, we are in conversation with Claire Holman, modelmaking professional and lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth. We follow Claire's journey from a fairly nomadic start as her family moved first to Zambia and then to England, closely followed by Scotland as her father's work dictated their journey. This was followed at age sixteen by Claire leaving school and taking on a...

Denim jeans have become an integral part of modern-day life.  The majority of us own at least one pair (I personally have to confess to seven)! But how are these garments made? At what cost to the environment? And when they reach end of life how many of us give proper thought to where our once-loved products end up? Josh Myers is on a mission to turn these discarded garments into aesthetically bea...

This episode sees us in conversation with Sophie Hague - 2022 RSA Student Award winner and UX Designer. Sophie found school difficult, not so much academically, but she found it over-stimulating, crowded and overall, just not an enjoyable experience. The one exception to this was design and technology lessons, where she enjoyed the 'open-endedness' of problem-solving activities and just...

Amanda was somewhat destined to work in fashion from an early age. Influenced by her grandmother, who placed her in front of a sewing machine at age eight, she quickly learned how to use the machine and how to make her own clothes. Her grandmother's throwaway comment, having made her own dress only a short time after being introduced to the sewing machine, stuck, and Amanda's journey int...

In this first podcast of 2024, we are delighted to be in conversation with  Reianna Shakil, UKRI Young Innovators Awards 22/23 Winner | Multidisciplinary Designer | Founder + Director of Studio ZRX. In this conversation, we cover Reianna's journey from school through how she overcame problems when her funding ran out part way through her sixth form course and then how she had to find ways to...

So that was 2023!  Twenty-four episodes of Designed for Life were recorded and published over the course of the year, fulfilling our promise of at least one podcast every two weeks. In these pods, I have been fortunate to speak with a wide range of innovators, founders, designers, engineers, academics, teachers and students, and here in this (admittedly longer than usual podcast), we pick out some...

Where was the first music concert you ever attended? Who was the artist? Who did you see this artist/band with? And finally, how did you feel as you left the gig? If you are like me and love your live music, these are questions that will roll off the tongue. For me, it was the Police. I was fifteen years old and with my best mate from school, the gig was at Hammersmith Odean, and it left me buzzin...

How many of you reading this have fond childhood memories of reading the Beano? I am guessing many of you could name most of the characters from the Beano now; some of you may still have Christmas Annuals tucked away somewhere in the loft. Well, the good news is the Beano is still alive and well...in fact, it is in rude health.  So when I received an email asking if I would like to speak with Alex...

This is part two of a two-part mini-series in which we explore the development of the design and technology curriculum offer at Hethersett Academy in East Anglia. If you have not yet listened to part one, I suggest you go back and listen to this first, as there is something of a sequence.  In this episode, we follow on from our conversation with Kate Finlay, Head of Department and Trust Curriculum...

In the second of our focus podcasts within a specific school, we are delighted to bring you 'Designed for Life' in conversation with Hethersett Academy in East Anglia.  The intention within these podcasts is to provide listeners with a complete 360 journey around the design and technology department in the school, with interviews and thoughts from students, teachers, parents and senior l...

In this episode, we are delighted to be joined in conversation by Jenny Body CBE.  This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at Aerospace Bristol on the morning of our annual awards ceremony on the 13th of October this year. The recording was made almost within touching distance of Concorde, an aircraft that Jenny had the privilege of working on some years ago. Jenny Body is a British...

In this episode, I was delighted to be in conversation with Jennifer Campbell, Managing Director of Giles Agency Hong Kong.  In the pod, we track Jen's journey from rural Berkshire through the discovery that her natural penchant to quickly strike up conversations with people, together with an ability to sell and the tenacity to hang on in there when sales didn't go as planned, could actu...

This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at The Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. This is the first of a series of live podcasts to come as we take Designed for Life on the road to meet not only our stunning guests but also teachers, students and their parents. In this podcast, I was fortunate to be in conversation with Charlotte Chapman, CEng. MIMechE. Charlotte is a project manager a...

Larry Sullivan is a serial entrepreneur, business founder, angel investor and social philanthropist. In this podcast, we track Larry's journey from humble beginnings growing up in Essex to a sudden awakening to academia in sixth form, leading him to be the first in his family to attend university.  A chance conversation led him to travel to America during his summer break with BUNAC https://b...

The joy of this podcast is that through it, we get to talk with designers, engineers and innovators at the very peak of their game and often informed by years or even decades of experience. At the same time, we have spoken with people at the very start of their careers, and are privileged to explore how they are shaping themselves and their careers for the future. In this episode of Designed for L...

Ben Edmonds is a designer, inventor, entrepreneur, engineer and self-confessed 'tinkerer'. In this episode, we follow Ben from school where aged twelve and asked what he wanted to do when he grew up; he answered, "I want to be a lead designer for Dyson".  Almost twenty years later, that's exactly what he did,  becoming a Principal Designer at Dyson. But Ben's story is...

In this episode of Designed for Life, we speak with Ifeoma Noelin Okolie. Ify is a Chartered, FSEng (SIS) Certified, Product Safety Manager, Choral Singer, Poet & Abstract Photographer.  Ify has 13 years experience delivering innovative state-of-the-art safety engineering solutions across a variety of safety-critical industries, where she has held various leadership positions.  She devotes her...

In this latest episode of Designed for Life, you get to meet the Young V&A’s first designer in ‘The Shed’, Clara Chu.  The Young V&A opened its doors on Saturday, 1 July 2023. Young V&A is a powerhouse of creativity for the young, from infants to early teens. It is a national museum dedicated to children and young people, a place to imagine, play, create, debate and design for tomorrow...