Presenting to product design students at the University of Sussex

Following on from exhibiting at Generation Expo last weekend, I was asked to talk to product design students at the University of Sussex about The Future Perfect Company and our design ethos.

The students are about to start their third year projects and are looking for inspiration and ideas.

Other speakers included a charity wanting to redesign their communcation switches, a commercial kitchen supplier looking for ways to improve some of their products and a government- sponsored intermediary wanting to puts students in touch with SMEs with design challenges. It struck me as a win win situation for both students and design companies. Students get experience of working on real life design problems and SMEs get the chance to engage some of the most creative brains in the country.

I shared my experience of working on the “Designing for the Future” competition with the University of  Brighton and Collyer’s Sixth Form College.

The University of Sussex is itself a baby boomer, celebrating its 50th birthday this year and I hope that at least some of the audience will think about designing products which meet the challenges we all face as we get older.