Successfulproductdesigncombinesformandfunction. Howeverbeautifulaproductis,tobetrulysuccessful itmustworkas wellasitlooks

What is a cool product design? We’ve rounded up 10 of what we consider to be among the best. Our criteria are that the products should be aspirational, good looking, sustainable and either designed or manufactured in our region.

Across the region there are many companies which are already hugely successful in terms of product design and function. In the top 10 of the list must surely come Malmesbury-based Dyson.

The company’s vacuum cleaner designs are now iconic, and its more recent products, including the hairdryer and air purifiers are equally as successful and beautiful to look at.

But great product design isn’t new. Think of the Anglepoise lamp. It was based on a new spring and lever mechanism invented in 1932 by automotive engineer George Carwardine.

This system allowed the lamp to remain in position after being moved in every direction. It became popular immediately and demand soon outstripped supply, so Carwardine licensed it to Herbert Terry & Sons, a manufacturer based at Redditch in Worcestershire that supplied springs to industry. Almost 100 years later it remains an iconic design.

Then there is the lowly lawnmower. In 1830, Edwin Beard Budding patented “a new combination and application of machinery for the purpose of cropping or shearing the vegetable surface of lawns and pleasure grounds”. Before the invention of the lawnmower, grass was cut by scythes.

Edwin, a mechanic who built and repaired machinery for the textile mills in the Stroud valleys, got the idea for his lawnmower from the cross-cutting machines used to finish woollen cloth. Apparently, more than 1,000 were manufactured and sold from the Phoenix Iron Works in Thrupp, near Stroud.

And of course, Concorde, by far and away the world’s most beautiful (but OK we admit, not the most sustainable), aircraft was built at Filton in Bristol.

The origins of the Concorde project date back to the early 1950s when Sir Arnold Hall, Director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, asked the noted Welsh aeronautical engineer Morien Morgan, to form a committee to study the potential of supersonic transport. They delivered their first report in 1955.