Why the Fork: Everyday design for curious minds

What object signifies a unified world, a world where we work together for the good of everyone (and a tastier breakfast)? Few other objects combine affordability, years of manufacturing advancement and the global trade system better than the toaster. It’s a clever little invention that has changed very little since its first design in the early 1900s, yet you’d be hard pushed to find a household w...

Your bathroom is home to something that has been with us for just a few hundred years, but without it, our health would be so much poorer. The toothbrush has become part of our daily routine, but it’s roots go way beyond what lives in your bathroom cabinet today. This episode takes in its beginnings as a natural tool, through to Napoleon (again), President Jefferson and how a riot in the UK led to...

Under your worktop there's an icon quietly sitting there, transforming people's lives. Without it, you would be still taking a weekly trip down to your local river, or washhouse, to get your clothes clean. Adding hours of domestic chores to everyone's week. The washing machine is a silent part of the civilised world (apart from when its on a fast spin), but no one talks about them. They are so int...

The backpack is something that's interwoven into our lives. They grow with us, from our early days at school, to our holidays and our daily commute. It's always there, happily carrying all the stuff we cram into it. But it's one of those bits of design that's so clever and so everyday, you assume it simply evolved with us. But, of course, that's not the case. It's passed through the hands of a lot...

Our hair, and how it looks, plays a huge part in our identity. From beehives to bobs and from quiffs to comb-overs, your hair-do says a lot about who you are. And the hair straightener has played a bigger role in that than you may think, for longer than you might have realised. Long before GHD was a thing, people were getting rid of their curls to fit in, and conform to social standards and norms...

Welcome to Why the Fork - a fortnightly journey into the everyday objects that you probably ignore on a daily basis. For our first episode, we're taking a look at why the tin opener is designed like it is. Creative Innovator and inventor of consumer goods, Ben Diamant, discovers: The reason why the tin opener came along hundreds of years after the tin can itself. Why Napoleon was instrumental in w...

Join us on a fascinating journey into the stories of everyday items. On Why the Fork, Inventor Ben Diamant looks at the hidden stories of the mundane objects in your home, that have an illustrious and fascinating past. Everything in your home has been designed by someone or a group of people over a number of years, but on the whole the people and the stories behind them go untold. Hit subscribe an...