Designed for Life – Details, episodes & analysis

One pattern that has repeated across the 108 podcasts published since Designed for Life launched in the summer of 2020 is the role of serendipity in aligning people and their careers. 

Today's podcast is a case in point. Driven by a primal desire to help people, Olivia set her heart on a career in medicine. School and academia did not come easily to her, and she realised at a very early stage that if she were to have any hope of following her dream, she would need to roll her sleeves up and work harder than most. 

With this in mind, this is precisely what she did, sacrificing aspects of her social life and doing whatever was asked of her at school to achieve her goals, and more. Outstanding GCSE results followed, with Olivia being featured on her school's website front page as a success story. Here, the rhetoric changed as teachers now looked upon her as an 'academic' and as such, started to point her towards A Level success and University. 

Some careers are no doubt easier to enter if you come from the middle or upper classes. Finance is a factor if you want to enter architecture, medicine, law and many other career pathways; who you know and your access to work placements and internships are also significant factors. 

Olivia took a year out to rethink her future and, at first, saw Amazon as a way to earn money while she refocused. She is now a Mechantronics Engineering Apprentice at Amazon and is in her flow state in this position. 

I first came across Olivia at a recent Women in Manufacturing Conference, where she was on a panel alongside equally impressive fellow apprentices, and I had to ask her to share her story on the podcast. There is so much to learn from both her journey and where she is today. So sit back, take an hour for yourself and enjoy Designed for Life - In conversation with Olivia Lane. 

Huge thanks to Arachne.digital for their support that makes this podcast possible. To get a free check on your school's cyber security email contact@arachne.digital

For more information, please see Girls Gone STEM on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@girlsgonestem?_r=1&_t=ZN-91udctoZ8WE.

Or check Olivia's LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-lane-02bb802a2?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios

You can cover so much learning within the confines of the classroom, but with design & technology education, whether at the primary or secondary level, a carefully planned educational visit can add so much.

At the Design & Technology Association, we are always seeking potential visits to recommend to teachers and their students. With this in mind, we are delighted to talk with Julie Brierley, Head of Learning and Engagement at the excellent RAF Museum, Midlands. 

In this podcast, Julie takes us back to a mixed experience at school. Loving her primary school experience, and then finding secondary school to be less than welcoming to a shy, introverted student. Design and Technology education proved to be a sanctuary within this environment, and being one of the few female students was not a barrier to her loving the subject.

Set on a career in nursing, she surprised everyone (parents included) by leaving school as soon as she could and joining the RAF as an apprentice flight engineer. Here she found her 'tribe' and was immediately at home, but as we will hear in the podcast, this was before equality of opportunity reached the forces. As a woman, there were several challenges to overcome.

Julie is now Head of Learning and Engagement at RAF Museum Midlands, a perfect setting to study all things D&T, maths, science and across most of the curriculum. 

This is a tale of perseverance, about finding what you love, sticking with it, and finding a working role that plays to your strengths and brings you fulfilment and joy! I loved the conversation, and I think you will too.

Thanks to Arachne.digital for their continued support, which enables us to bring these conversations to you. Please reach out to request a consultation to secure your school's cyber presence by emailing contact@arachne.digital or visiting arachne.digital

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/midlands/schools-and-colleges/

https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/midlands/schools-and-colleges/learning-events/

In this episode, we continue exploring the journey of school design and technology leaders and departments as we visit and talk with staff, students, and parents at the Simon Langton Boys Grammar School in Canterbury, Kent. 

Before anyone decides this is a story of overprivileged students enjoying an experience created by money and connections, please know this is not the case. This department has been carefully crafted from the ground up with a limited budget and now has over two hundred students studying design and technology at GCSE and a mixed-gender, large, and growing sixth form.

The school has had huge success at F1 in Schools, winning the National competition, which allowed students to represent the UK in the World Finals. This, alongside other opportunities, is part of an extensive extra-curricular offer presented to Langton students. 

We recorded over a full day in school, and there was so much good content that it was impossible to edit it into one podcast, so we have decided to break this into two podcasts that will be released in close succession. 

So sit back, grab a moment or two to yourself and listen to Part One of Designed for Life, in conversation with the Simon Langton Boys Grammar School in Kent. 

We thank our sponsors, Arachne  Digital, your cyber threat intelligence platform for empowered protection. https://www.arachne.digital/

Follow The Langton Boys D&T Department on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/langtondesign/?hl=en

Zoe is a British artist, maker, self-confessed tinkerer and materials engineer.  Perhaps best known to design and technology teachers for her part in the iconic BBC2 series 'Big Life Fix' this is only one of many TV appearances over the years including 'This Morning' with Philip Scofield and Holly Willoughby, The secret of landfill (2018), The secret story of stuff (2018) and most recently 'How to Make' first aired April 2020. Zoe is also the resident materials expert on BBC Radio 4's 'The Kitchen Cabinet'. 

In this podcast, Zoe's absolute obsession with the beauty and intrigue of materials comes across loud and clear. Her PhD work explores how materials might affect the taste of food (how she describes a gold spoon's taste has to be heard to be believed).  Zoe went on to co-create The Institute of Making, a multidisciplinary research club based at University College London. 

As with all our guests, we take Zoe back to school and follow her journey to the design inspiration that she is today. I promise you will not be disappointed and you may never look at a tin rod quite the same ever again! 

Becky is a design researcher and award-winning research team leader at the University of the Arts London. She is based at Chelsea College of Arts where she is Co-Director of Centre for Circular Design (CCD). 

In October 2021 she co-founded World Circular Textiles Day 2050 with a team of like-minded collaborators who all want to create clear roadmaps for circular textiles, by drawing together current academic and industry research into inspiring, shared visions.

Becky's practise research encompasses making materials and prototypes, exhibition curation and writing. She is also a highly skilled workshop facilitator and communicator, specialising in the translation of cross-disciplinary design-led research into commercial contexts for sustainable fashion textiles and other fields. She particularly enjoys the challenge of educating and inspiring all kinds of audiences into more sustainable choices and actions towards circular futures.

She trained as a printed textile designer (BA Hons, Loughborough, 1992) and fashion print designer (MA, Central Saint Martins, 1994), before setting up her B. Earley London-based studio in 1995, with support from the Prince's Trust, Arts Council and the Crafts Council. In the late 90’s she created her award-winning low-impact, ‘exhaust printed’ recycled textiles. Her creative fashion textile work has been widely exhibited over the last twenty years; her prints and garments are collected by museums across the globe including MFIT in New York, RISD Museum, as well as the V&A and Crafts Council in London and the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford).

Description

In this episode we are in conversation with Laura Wood and Paul Pentelow, Co-Founders of Invisible Creations a design company with a stated purpose to 'Design for Dignity'.

The idea for Invisible Creations® was created in the National Housing Federation’s innovation programme in 2018.  The initiative was supported by the social housing sector and the company was formally founded as a new startup in January 2020.

Laura, Paul and the team are driven by a desire to bring dual purpose, high-quality thoughtfully and empathetically designed products to the homes of elderly people, enabling them to maintain their independance and to live life to the full.  This quote, taken from their website sums up their value driven approach to their business "Older people have been poorly served for too long with products that are stigmatising, clinical and downright ugly. We’re here to end it. Our aim is to completely disrupt a market that fosters negative stereotypes and makes people feel vulnerable."

What is interesting is neither Paul or Laura  come from Design backgrounds. Paul  left Salford University with a Degree in Sports Management and Laura was an English teacher with a background in Marketing and Comms; yet both have found themselves motivated to work in an area that really makes a positive impact on peoples lives. 

Our discussion takes us through a design process from identification of a design area ripe for exploration, through design to manufacture and marketing. Invisible Creations is a young company with a vision and a passion for what they do that comes over strongly in the podcast. 

Their website details a very personal story of Laura's nan Sheila. Sheila's story describes an independant, proud woman who did not feel that she should submit to ugly, stereotyped clinical design that "labelled me as old and infirm". Sheila's story can be echoed by millions of pensioners nationally, Invisible Creations was founded to help people like Sheila. 

In this, the fifth episode of Designed for Life, the podcast brought to you by The Design and Technology Association in partnership with The Edge Foundation, we talk with Dids Macdonald OBE Co-founder and Chief Executive of ACID (Anti-copying in Design). At the time of recording, Dids was also Master of The Furniture Makers Company, the City of London livery company and charity for the furniture industry. We were joined in the conversation by Anne Sampson, who was the outgoing Educational Events and Campaigns Manager. 

Designers are notoriously bad at protecting their intellectual property, while some are very aware that a good idea is easily stolen and copied, many get so wrapped up in the iterative process of bringing a design from concept to market that they completely ignore or are ignorant of simple actions that they can take to protect their design from being illegally copied. 

As a young designer herself, Dids was outraged by the audacity shown by some who openly copied and replicated her work and the work of colleagues. Instead of moaning about it, she decided to take action and Co-founded ACID, which has been working for the last 25 years to help to protect design intellectual property. 

In this episode, Dids talks us through the relatively simple steps that all designers should take to protect their work. We talk through how this could (and perhaps should) be taught as part of a D&T secondary or even primary education (it is taught to all primary aged pupils in China). 

Dids also takes us behind the scenes at one of the City’s newest livery companies. What is a livery company? How does this work with and for the furniture industry, and what can we do within education to encourage more students to consider furniture design as a worthy option? 

A wide-ranging and engaging conversation that lifts the lid on design theft and how to protect against it. 

In this episode of Designed for Life we are fortunate to be in conversation with Pim van Baarsen CEO of the Silverstone Technology Cluster, a high-tech business group situated geographically within an hours drive of the Silverstone race circuit.

Pim joined the Motorsport Industry Association after completing a Master’s degree in business studies. During his time there he was presented with the AIM Young Business Person of the Year award for his efforts in helping the organisation grow.

He subsequently joined transmission specialists Xtrac where he oversaw their sportscar activities. After two years there he was invited to join Haymarket as Group Marketing Manager.

In 2010, Pim co-founded CMA Marketing, a marketing agency specialising in technical B2B marketing.

In December 2016 Pim was asked to head up the Silverstone Technology Cluster and has been doing what he describes in the podcast as his 'dream job' since.

In 2016, research was published that identified the cluster around Silverstone, an area spanning as far as Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Luton, in which approximately 4,500 businesses reside who specialise in advanced engineering, electronics and software. As a result of this research, the Silverstone Technology Cluster (STC) organisation was founded

This podcast follows Pim's journey from school in the Netherlands through his dual degree taken at Plymouth University to his current post. We talk about how high-tech industries have reacted to the challenges posed by COVID-19 and how we can better join the worlds of education and industry to showcase an exciting emerging job market.  Pim gives his advice to students even vaguaely interested in working in the tech sector - A great conversation with something in there for everyone!

In this episode, we are in conversation with designer and technologist Jude Pullen. 

Winner of the 2020 Alastair Graham-Bryce "Imagineering" Award (Institution of Mechanical Engineers), Jude is a Product Design Engineer with an unparalleled appetite to investigate each subject matter that crosses his path. 

With a passion for bridging seemingly disparate disciplines, he is fascinated by fresh design challenges, be they human, mechanical or virtual. Exceptionally skilled at creating physical prototypes, he uses these models to explore design ideas, be they concepts for Dyson, a medical device for NHS, a fire-fighting robot or a mini space-pod.  

Jude has worked with Speck Design, Dyson, Sugru and LEGO but is possibly best known to design and technology teachers for his appearance as part of the design team on the BBCs Big Life Fix which has become something of an iconic show for design and technology teachers nationally (currently being repeated). 

Jude recently delivered a keynote as part of the Design and Technology Association's Autumn School. In the conversations leading to this keynote entitled "Not a Ted Talk", he was keen to avoid the 'easy option' of delivering a speech detailing his rich career to date. He was instead eager to explore the nature of design and technology teaching and what the future might hold for the subject. 

Teachers attending the Autumn School session were challenged to step forward to help form a group raising a hand to explore what might be possible in school with the support of Jude and some of his professional network of colleagues. That invitation is extended to D&T teachers listening to this podcast. 

This episode has something for teachers, students of D&T and for parents alike. So sit back, plug in and enjoy the D&T Association in conversation with Jude Pullen. 

In this, the fourth episode of Designed for Life, the podcast brought to you by the Design and Technology Association in partnership with the Edge Foundation; we meet Brian Oppenheim one of Her Majesties lead inspectors, a former teacher and head of design and technology and currently an experienced lead inspector with responsibility for the subject. 

In this conversation, we cover Brian's experience at school and what brought him to train to teach design and technology with the Inner London Education Authority. Brian talks us through his experiences as a head of department and how he developed a love for the subject that remains to this day. 

Brian was involved in helping to formulate the 'new' Ofsted framework and has worked to train other Ofsted colleagues in how to inspect design and technology and just what good and outstanding practise looks like in our subject. 

In our conversation, we cover a lot of ground, including:

• How does the revised framework for inspection differ from what came before and how has the first year been working with the new structure?
• What exactly is a broad curriculum offer from Ofsted's perspective and what happens when you inspect a school that has reduced their offer to students?
• What have been the main learning points for the subject over the last year?
• What is a 'deep dive' and how might this look in practice?

 This is an honest and open conversation with an Ofsted inspector that, in my opinion, really does value, understand and care about the subject.