Dyson Group Presentation

We were told at the end of the day after completing our Giegy presentation, that we had to pick a card from the table which contains an image/text and what ever we picked, we had to do another presentation the next morning on. We picked the random card, and it was an image of a Dyson hoover. Which apparently wasn't too bad compared to other choices, and my opinion was that it was a good pick based off my knowledge and liking for the company and product. Below is the presentation notes. (Presentation didn't get shown based on people of the group being absence.)

Dyson Ltd is a British technology company, founded in 1993 by James Dyson.
Dyson designs and manufactures vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and other electronical devices. Dyson machines can be found in over 45 different countries and it has always been a global company. At first Dyson struggled to find someone who wanted to buy his design. Companies such as Hoover didn’t want to license the design, probably because the vacuum bag market was worth $500m, and saw the design as a threat to their profits. But in 1983 there was a breakthrough, a Japanese company named Apex licensed James' design and built the G-Force, which appeared on the front cover of Design Magazine the same year.


After making a good amount of profit off the G-force and using the income from the Japanese licence, James Dyson set up the Dyson company and also opened a research centre and factory in Wiltshire, England in June 1993. Which now is Home to fewer than 650 engineers, the Dyson Research Design and Development Centre in Wiltshire was designed by architect Chris Wilkinson. It was also engineered to reduce environmental impact which means there's no air conditioning. Displacement ventilation is used to blow cool air in at floor level while warm air naturally rises and is dispersed through vents in the roof. Dyson's first production of a dual cyclone vacuum cleaner featuring constant suction was the DC01, sold for £200. The DC01 became the biggest selling vacuum cleaner in the UK in just 18months. After the introduction of the cylinder machine many more improved models of the DC01 where in action this then led onto air-powered technologies such as, the Air Blade hand drier, the Air Multiplier bladeless fan and Dyson Hot, the bladeless fan heater.


James Dyson is known for his innovation in unexpected, stagnant and seemingly unchanging fields of technology. His first product was the Rotork Sea Truck. A high speed landing craft that could be used to deliver land based vehicles where no harbor or jetty was available.

While renovating his property in the early 70’s James Dyson noticed problems with the conventional wheelbarrow, the wheel would sink into the mud, was also unstable and was prone to puncture. Dried cement would also stick to the inside of the body. In 1974 Dyson created a design that rectified all these issues. The steel frame of the conventional wheelbarrow was replaced with a plastic bin that didn’t rust or stick to fresh concrete. He replaced the wheel of conventional wheelbarrows with a spherical plastic ball, which could traverse all terrains. This design was carried across to his later ball-based vacuum cleaners.

In 1979 James Dyson noticed that classic bag vacuum cleaners rapidly lost suction as they were used. This is because the air had to be able to flow through the pores in the bag in order to maintain suction. The dust quickly clogs these pores and blocks the airflow. Between 1979 and 1983 Dyson created 5,127 prototypes of a vacuum cleaner with no bag and no loss of suction developed using industrial cyclone technology brought down to small scale. The first production version of this design was initially released as the G-Force…

Dyson over the years have created some extremely creative ideas for house cleaners, three designs stand out which are all different in their own rights, and all in different sizes and shapes based on what you’re tackling to clean. Firstly you have your uprights which are for the basic and daily clean of households. This includes the Dyson Ball that was a massive success based off how users could control the device far easier than a standard hover, it allowed less hassle on turning corners and travelling around the surface. The next hover device is the Cylinder, this device was just as good as a ball, but was made mostly for the size which they came in. It made home owners who had little space in their homes ability to store without hassle. Most importantly these devices came in different sizes too. Lastly is the handhelds and cordless hovers, these were far the greatest invention of the lot, due to the access of using a light machine to clean places that were normally a pain, like stairs and ceilings where dust got to. But obviously not everyone will want to buy that on its own, so they invented further and created a handheld and cordless hover that gave you different ability to clean everything you needed.

Geigy Group Presentation

A group presentation was done which we had to base it off "What is Good Design?" So in groups of four, we gathered information on the internet to find a decent artist/company that showed this interest. Below is the presentation notes we presented to the class.

Geigy were a Swiss pharmaceutical and company primarily active from the 1940’s to 1970’s founded by J.R. Geigy who’s in-house design shop (Also known as the Geigy propaganda department) was headed by Max Schmid which employed and was associated with many big freelance designers of the day such as Armin Hoffman, Jorg Hamburger, Karl Gerstner, Herbert Leupin, Toshihiro Katayama and Gottfried Honegger, among many others. The working environment was fantastic for these designers, as the design team were supplied with a constant stream of new products and given free reign over the copy and concepts, ignoring any conventions of what had come before. This resulted in original artwork that stood out from anything else on the shelf.

Geigy’s design team wanted to avoid a too narrow idea of style, and so focused on the idea of “corporate diversity” as the basic principle of the brand’s corporate identity, As art director Max Schmid defined the visual style of the company. Schmid’s emphasis was always on the use of strong visual images. He made use of black and white photography and even X-rays to condense a subject to its most elemental; and used stylised depictions of pests or body parts in focused treatments. The use of strong colours and clever design concepts on the packaging symbolised what treatment would be inside, for an example On this packaging of ‘Petrofran’, a ball and chain runs around all four sides of the package – when the perforated strip in the middle of the box is torn open, the links in the chain are broken, symbolising liberation.

Geigy’s medical packaging of the 50’s is some of the most recognized and iconic design work of the era. The design packaging is very typical modernist but is unique in its approach, the packaging uses type hierarchy, organising information while highlighting what’s most important keeping the balance instead of being top or bottom heavy. This was very different to the style at the time as varying types were used as well as decorative elements.  Also their use of strong identifiable colours really stood out at the time and indicated what was soon to follow. Geigy’s medical packaging design still influences packaging today as the clear, clean and simple approach to displaying information is still what is needed and preferred.

The designers were encouraged to reject the tired design concepts and visuals present in much of the competition and were instead required to engage in aesthetic exploration. Geigy sold medical products, chemicals and pesticides all with a distinctive but diverse visual approach, their minimalist graphic design in the 40’s and 50’s harkens back to a time when product design, even medical packaging looked both aesthetically stylish, and utilised a kind of 'minimalist cool' seen much less frequently in most modern packaging design. The chemical products and scientific subject matter lent itself to a high degree of visual abstraction and clinical reduction. Geigy were known as unique because they completely melded design for products with product manufacturing.

The do's and don'ts of creating a CV -

Today I will be told within a lecture of the do's and dont's in creating a CV. I think the information i'll be receiving will help towards future writing of updated CVs and even talking about future work I will create.

Lectures Notes: 

How to write a successful cv before applying for a job.

A good cv is vital when looking for work, especially when there are numerous candidates for the same job, so what should it contain?

There is no perfect template, and each sector may require a different emphasis on a different aspect of the content, such as career history or qualifications.

How to write a successful cv. 

Experts suggest there are some basic rules on how a CV should be written and the information that should be included.

It should also be short, usually no more than two sides of A4. It should be positive, stressing achievements and strengths, and make a good impression in a clear and positive way.

Basic format for a cv

Personal details, including name, address, phone number, email address and possibly any professional social media presence. You no longer need to include your date of birth, owing to age discrimination rules

Career history, starting with your most recent job first. Include dates and temporary or voluntary jobs if appropriate. A personal profile which sells yourself and your qualities, tailored towards the job you are applying for.

Achievements from previous jobs that are relevant. Qualifications and training from previous jobs, with the most recent first. Interests, if they are relevant and especially if the skills or teamwork concerned are relevant for the job.

Any extra information, such as reasons for a career change or reasons for gaps in career history. References, ideally two or more and including a recent employer.

Pitfalls of developing a CV

Poor spelling is the quickest way of getting a rejection. check five or six adverts for a particular job and then use the common requirements to mould the CV.

Many people think that one CV will fit all applications, but it needs to be a very targeted document for the role they are going for. Do some research so you understand what employers are looking for.

Do not add your photo to the CV. Employers can make presumptions based on the image.

You are a designer, think about type size, legibility and layout. Print your CV/resume onto high quality paper or card. Why? Because when someone gets a hold of it, they will feel like it needs to be taken care of and not just shoved to the side into a pile.