The team assembles: meet Manufactured Design
Existential questions, beautiful design and penance for previous sins
Certain skills and expertise will be crucial if we’re to succeed in our mission to radically reduce home appliance waste. Industrial design is top of that list.
So I was buzzing when I first spoke with Dan Barnes about the industrial design studio he founded, Manufactured Design. I was struck by their focus on positive impact and their holistic approach to design challenges. Founded only 4 years ago, their small team has already won leading industry awards including Red Dot, IF and D&AD for their work, ranging from durable city bikes for Beryl to a circular packaging system for Meadow. All to say, it seemed like a perfect fit.
Dan’s interest in making things started at a young age. He grew up (like me) in the north of England, with a dad who worked in manufacturing and loved to repair cars. He started tinkering as a kid and “just kept going”. In the 20 odd years since, he’s been a designer for organisations ranging from startups to large corporations, including Glen Dimplex, the owners of mainstream appliance brand Morphy Richards. What was it like inside “Big Toast”? “It gave me real insight into how little is up for grabs design-wise at these titans. The price points they operate at, with volume retailers calling the shots, mean new products are a reskin job every time. There’s no real scope for innovation in design or technology.”
These experiences have shaped his approach with Manufactured Design. They start by questioning the very basis of the proposed product. “We want to make sure we’re making the right thing - and whether that thing should exist at all”. Once convinced of the need, they take a holistic approach to finding a solution. “The product itself is just one part of a system, across the whole of its lifetime. So it’s important to cover all bases, from upstream supply chain to downstream lifecycle management. Take Beryl - journeys totaling almost 5 million kilometres have been made on Beryl bikes. That’s only possible by designing in not just durability but serviceability, to keep them in continual operation”.
One way they achieve this is by including manufacturing considerations in early design thinking. They have substantial expertise in UK manufacturing, which imposes a particular set of constraints. “Compared to Asia, the scope of manufacturing in the UK is very narrow. So to make products locally you need to design within what’s possible here. For example, when redesigning the Beryl bike docking station we chose an extruded form. This was a great design solution - a single, solid, resilient piece of material - but also feasible for UK factories to make at the necessary scale and cost.”
Once it had survived Dan’s customary initial scepticism, we both became excited by the potential of partnering on the 100 year toaster project. “It’s a project that challenges the linearity of the development process, the idea that R&D is just up front. We have to move away from that model of design, release, move on, and create a more sustainable contract with the customer. And the impact can be huge. There’s a toaster in almost every household, but that’s just the start - our hope is that we can take the approach we develop and apply to other appliances”. Safe to say I can’t wait to work with Dan, and his team of James and Joe, who bring expertise from roles with Dyson, Arrival, Nolii and Black & Blum.
Everyone on the project is unified by a desire to radically reduce home appliance waste, but for Dan it also has a personal dimension: penance for his previous product design sins. “I made a product years ago that will haunt me for the rest of my days - the “Daisy Fan Heater”. The client wanted to take one of their existing heaters, make it pink, and sell it to girls. It went on to become possibly the biggest selling product in my career at that point - 1 million units and counting - a large proportion of which I fear are now in landfill. So maybe the toaster project is also my opportunity for redemption”. For you and us all, Dan!