From an early age I’ve been making, building, creating and inventing. If only I still had pictures of the zip line I built at the age of 11 in my back garden using 20m of steel cable! It was clear that I was going to go on to a career in design and innovation. For me, the mark of an Inventor is being granted a patent. Solid proof you’re inventive because it literally names the inventors right there!. Click HERE to see the patents I’ve been named on throughout my career alongside a great list of other engineers.
For more creative content from me, check out www.instagram.com/innovationben
HYPOZEUXIS :: 2017
I designed, developed and built this ARTGILITY piece for a show called Hypozeuxis for Funk Format at Victorious Festival with New Theatre Royal supported by Arts Council England. A special one off piece, it was made at 10th scale on my 3D printer until the real thing came to life from scaffold tubes, aluminum staging and plywood.
Secret Garden Sundial for the barn theatre :: 2017
I LOVE the Barn Theatre in Cirencester so much! Not only did they used to host The Barn Academy there where my children got their first opportunity to tread the boards but they are so creative and clever with the space they have. I was commissioned to design make and build the sundial for the stage so that it could sustain the weight of 10 grown adults and also pivot easily by hand.
Essentially a giant lazy Susan, I smashed this build out and the show was total hit!
Dyson Technology :: 2011 – 2023
It seems strange to say ‘I used to work at Dyson’ as it’s been over a quarter of my life. It was my dream to work there since I was at school outside the Design and technology room chatting with my mates about what we might do one day. I wanted to be a Design Manager at the company known for some of Britain’s greatest innovations! I worked at Dyson for twelve and a half years from 2011 starting out in NPD for a year before joining NPI Environmental Care where I remained for 9 years. More recently I was working in New Concepts until I left half way through 2023, not before the launch of Big + Quiet, Dyson’s Quietest most powerful purifier which I ran as a project from 2017 until transfer to Malaysia in 2019:)
I can’t talk about most of the things I worked on as they quite rightly work hard to keep their secrets secret but i’m pleased to say I made an impact very quickly securing a global patent for the stowage system on DC49, Dysons smallest ever ball vacuum cleaner. They had been struggling to keep it upright when stowed. I created a novel system that met the IEC standards as well as optimising the chassis design to prevent it from falling over when it went round corners!
XYRATEX INTERNATIONAL (Since bought out by seagate) :: 2007 – 2011
After I left Elmdene I joined Xyratex in 2007 as Lead Design engineer, it was a big step up at the time and two of the longest 3 hour interviews I’ve ever had! We were an OEM to Bluechip clients like IBM, Dell, NetApp and more designing large boxes of disc drives, anywhere from 12 in one box to 84! Products we developed stored all the data held in facebook at the time – huge amounts of data.
I was responsible for industrial design, UI/UX, HMI as well as labels, graphics, tampos – essentially anything the user interacted with.
All these years later it’s great to find images of the products I designed out there in the real world.
My graphic design used to brand the rack mounted server units in data centers all over the world
You know those scenes when they go into a room like this in a movie or program like 24? I’m always looking out for the products i’ve designed and here they are…
Elmdene international :: 2002 – 2007
I started out my professional career in the security industry at a company called Elmdene International. I completed my university placement year with them and they liked me so much that they hired me straight back 4 days after I finished university!
Whilst I was there I designed all kinds of products that can be seen on every high street in the UK, the one that you might recognise the most is the Chubb Delta 6. My concept design helped Elmdene secure a £1M contract, at the time they were a £6M company.
I’m the named inventor on 2 patents for this product, if you want to become an inventor like me you should check out my 3D Printing For Innovation course. It’s the perfect into production into inventing, design, problem solving, testing and analysis.
I designed tons of products over my 5 years at Elmdene, I’m really proud to say that the products I worked on are busy protecting Concorde down at Filton Concorde Museum. You might also spot the heavy duty door contacts and junction boxes I created on the entrance to all River Island Shops