COVER STORY In reality, ‘‘ every
product, invention and business case is completely different. I must have done 10 commercial projects, and 20 experimental inventions, in over 25 years, that haven’t made it forward
’’
GOOD VIBES His most recent undertaking has been the launch of Uplift 2.0, a never-ending spiral that pirouettes hypnotically, encased in a glass dome and sat on a wooden pedestal. It’s like something you’d find in a Victorian cabinet of curios; a small, brass mechanism, harnessing daylight to power the rotating helix. Made of a sea-blue material, the spiral glows in the sunlight. It’s extremely soothing to watch – which in fact, is the whole point, since Uplift 2.0 is intended to enable stressed-out observers to unwind and meditate. Lawton himself is a man you sense runs on a mix of good vibes and drive. “I’ve got very, very good spirit in my veins, whatever that means!” he smiles. “I don’t even need to think about being optimistic. It just happens.” He channels this energy into new ideas and inventions, taking inspiration from diverse sources – things he spots on his morning run, for example, or headline events dominating world news. Bubblescope, for example, was inspired by TV news footage of Saddam Hussein’s statue being toppled during the Iraq war. That got Lawton wondering what was happening out of shot. The focus for Million Mile Light was inspiring people to believe that renewable energy can be a beautiful thing. The original Uplift design, meanwhile, was a response to Brexit and influenced by Lawton’s previous work on a project involving spirals.
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“Brexit came, and all the people I love just seemed to lock horns with one another. And I’m not political. I have my thoughts and opinions, but I just have to reel it in, otherwise I’d just end up barking up trees,” he says. “It really upset me that my friends were suddenly at each other’s throats. It was really depressing.” His instinct, rather than to be ground down by the situation, was to make something – and around the same time, his fellow inventor and collaborator Ben Jandrell brought him a new device that he was working on. “We’ve got a dual fascination in doing cool things with very small amounts of energy – that’s where the Million Mile Light came from,” Lawton explains. “Ben showed me the little kinetic arrangement for a solar engine and I was like, ‘That’s really cool’, and I thought about the spiral and whether I could combine the two things together.” At this point, Uplift was, in essence, an art project. Its spinning tower was made from laser-cut pieces of wood, arranged on the motorised shaft that spiralled upwards. But Lawton soon realised it was more than that, when he took his creation to visit his grandmother, Kitty, in her nursing home and saw its beneficial effects. “The effect [of the spiral] was to very genuinely ease her anxiety – and when you’ve got dementia, you can easily get on a stressful pathway,” he says. “It became a really nice relaxation tool for her, and I’d bring it every time I went to see her.” Sadly, Kitty passed away some time later, but his grief drove Lawton to take his design to the next level.
MOMENT OF CLARITY After some tweaks to the design, the first model was launched on Kickstarter, a place where, from previous positive experiences, Lawton feels comfortable launching his creations. “I’ve become pretty effective at starting Kickstarter campaigns,” he says. “I’ve done maybe six, and every time, we’ve raised £60,000 to £70,000. So that’s £250 to £300 grand on Kickstarter over the years.” Uplift was another great crowdfunding success for Lawton, and suddenly he was faced with the challenge of having to make and assemble 440 units. But 22,000 lasercut pieces of wood later (each hand-finished with a nail file), his labour of love paid off. “There’s this paradox there,” he reflects. “I’m in the pursuit of relaxation, but to get there, I’ve got to do these insanely hectic things!” Using Kickstarter not only verified that there was a market for Uplift, but it created a direct link for Lawton to communicate with customers. “Lots of people were telling me about how it helped their mental health, which I hadn’t really considered,” he says. Parents of children with autism got in touch, too, telling him how it aided calming. People whose mobility is restricted through illness found it soothed their frustrations.
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2 Marine Nylon is produced ●
from recycled fishing nets in Cornwall
3 The blue plastic takes on a ●
‘glowing’ visual form under light 4 A finished Uplift 2.0 delivered ●
to a customer
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