FEATURE JUNE 2018
Small steps to big ideas BIG concepts start with a small idea. For a number of North-east organisations, thinking little is helping to bring large ideas to life.
“I really enjoy what I am doing and most of the things I’m making are one-offs. I am often taking somebody’s idea, maybe a concept they have invented, and the first time it exists in any tangible form is when I put a model on the table in front of them.” Gavin Bain, director, Celtic3D
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Gavin Bain runs a successful business creating small things which have a big impact on his clients. From tiny people to a copper smelting plant and from oilfield equipment to historic buildings, he makes 3D models which allow a vision of what a major project might look like on completion. When the IT expert left his senior management position in the oil and gas industry it was his intention to transition his hobby into his career by creating personalised bronze-cast clan crests for the North American market. However, he quickly began to consider wider applications for the software he had developed and his company, Celtic3d, now targets construction
firms, architects and product development companies. “I still do the bronze crests and that’s where I cut my teeth,” he said, “but that’s now a marginal activity alongside the other things. I really enjoy what I am doing and most of the things I’m making are one-offs. I am often taking somebody’s idea, maybe a concept they have invented, and the first time it exists in any tangible form is when I put a model on the table in front of them. That can bring an ‘eyes light up’ reaction which can be very satisfying and it can be very rewarding to be part of the process of bringing someone’s idea to life.” He received such a reaction at Subsea Ecosse when he produced a model of a trenching system which, until then, had only existed as a computer image. It was a similar story with the Sue Ryder charity and an extension to