About the Design
Compass
Collaborators
Stefan Knox
Bang Creations
Stefan is an award-winning designer, specialising in invention, product design, manufacture and bringing innovation to market.
Before establishing Bang Creations in 1999, he was responsible for boys’ toys at Hasbro EU, where he worked on brands including Action Man, Star Wars and Nerf. There Stefan learnt that ‘you can make anything, but only marketable products sell’ and went on to work with global teams to generate innovative, yet commercial product and has been instrumental in getting them to market.
Stefan qualified with a 1st Class Hons degree in Engineering Product Design, and diploma in Marketing and Business. He was awarded IED design award for sub sea electrical connector, German design Award for Colandish, MAX it award for best selling hobby product, 3 gold and 2 silver toy awards
Dr Simon Andrews
Falmouth University
Simon Andrews is Course Leader on the Sustainable Product Design programme at Falmouth University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust. His research practice focuses on the relationship between design and health and wellbeing, in particular the opportunities to empower people through inclusive design. His past research projects include a collaboration with local charity, Cornwall Mobility, to design a beach wheelchair to make access to the Cornish coast more inclusive. Through his PhD research project, he worked with people at risk of falls to design clothes that motivate active lifestyles and provide protection from hip fractures.
Research Topics
- Sustainable Design
- Digital Design and Production
- Pedagogy
- Manufacturing
- Rapid Prototyping
- 3D Cad
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Research interests and expertise
Interests and expertise, in no particular order:
Sustainable design strategies: design for disassembly, cradle-to-cradle, dematerialisation, service design, emotional design.
Design process/design thinking/design theory.
Design pedagogy.
Integration of digital tools within design teaching.
Life Cycle Assessment and application of LCA software.
Low carbon lifestyles.
Eco materials.
Furniture design (contract/industrial production).
Product design.
Exhibition design.
Manufacturing production detailing.
AutoCAD.
SolidWorks.
Rapid prototyping.
Sheet metal production.
Plastic injection moulding.
Rebecca Falcon
University of Chester
Rebecca Falcon is a product design professional with global experience in product innovation, development, and manufacturing. Combining her industry expertise with a passion for education, she is Course Leader for the Product Design BA (Hons) at the University of Chester, where she has developed a business-focused design curriculum to prepare students for the future workplace. In addition to her teaching role, Rebecca is a University Innovation Fellow, working with the Centre for Academic Innovation and Development to lead educational change, enhance academic practice, and share best practices across the University.
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Rebecca has worked internationally across Europe, Asia, and New Zealand in diverse roles, including Design Manager for an R&D company developing high-tech toileting systems, Freelance Design Consultant for a major nursery products manufacturer in China, and IT Project Manager overseeing the rollout of 50,000 Siemens smart meters in New Zealand. This commercial experience, combined with an understanding of different organisational structures, informs her approach to education and curriculum development.
Driven by a commitment to innovation and problem-solving, Rebecca believes product design should challenge the status quo and always strive to ‘make it better’, through smarter functionality, enhanced user experience, and a sustainability mindset integrated in every stage of the design process.
Évy Duthiel
Falmouth University
Évy Dutheil, is an award winning eco-innovative designer working on design projects, research and curriculum into sustainable living, user behavior with focus on materials process, regenerative bio materials, product life cycle, social environmental impact assessment and circular business opportunities. She graduated from Ensaama, Paris and BIAD, Birmingham. Her work has been shown internationally including at the European capital design week: London, Paris, Milan and academic events such as IMES Cambridge UK, Cumulus Hong-Kong.
She presented work at conferences including Shenzhen University Biennale, Brighton University – European Cluster, UCA for the Sustainable Innovation for creative economy and industries. She has taught at the Open Electives Master level at National Institute of Design-India, UniLasalle- Rouen and the responsible Bachelor at Autograf-Paris. She is currently Senior Lecturer in the Ba(Hons) Sustainable Product Design at Falmouth University.
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Évy also contributes through practice research based publications for the platform ‘EcoDesignObservatoire’.
She has an eclectic range of industry design collaborations centering on sustainable innovation and global design. Collaborations include working with Pimliko on eco-projects and packaging for SFR, XXM Architectures on bio-pilot project for Naturalia store, Lago for home design furniture; Bento to rethink restaurant global identity. She has collaborated in performance display design with British filmmaker for Wayne Mac Gregor CBE, on international ballets and creatively co-producing the archive filming of the Dance festival for La Biennale di Venizia.
Sarah Cheetham
Bang Creations
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Sarah is an industrial designer with Bang Creations in Surrey, UK. Working for a design consultancy for many years has given her a well rounded experience of product design for many different sectors. By adapting learning in one area to solve problems in another she has been able to develop unique and successful products.
Before joining the team at Bang she studied at Coventry University where she attained a Master’s degree in Consumer Product Design.
Sarah is focused on sustainable design and strives to understand the impacts of products on people and planet and what we as designers can do to improve them. She completed sustainability courses at Surrey University on Life Cycle thinking and Life Cycle assessment.
Dawn Bonfield
Kings College London
Dawn Bonfield MBE FREng is a composite materials engineers by background, and now has a number of diverse roles across the engineering sector.
After spending the earlier part of her career in the automotive and aerospace sectors, she became CEO of the Women’s Engineering Society, focusing on creating a more diverse and gender inclusive built environment.
Building on this work, Dawn then went on to develop the concept of ‘Inclusive Engineering’, which ensures that engineering outcomes (i.e. products, services and solutions) – as well as the ‘inputs’ to engineering (i.e. the engineers) are accessible and inclusive of all users, and are as free as possible from discrimination and bias, throughout their lifecycle.
To progress this work further she founded her own consultancy company Towards Vision, and became Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineering at Aston University.
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She has subsequently been the Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at King’s College London and is now Professor of Practice of Engineering for Sustainable Development at King’s College London working within engineering and the University more broadly on addressing and embedding the Sustainable Development Goals.
Dawn is President of the Commonwealth Engineers’ Council, and UK representative and Board Member of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations, where she is Deputy Chair of the Women in Engineering Committee.
She is also the founder of the social enterprise Magnificent Women which celebrates the history of women in engineering, and she was the founder of International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) which takes place on 23 June annually.
Dawn has won many awards for her work, and was made an MBE in 2017 for her work on promoting diversity and inclusion in engineering.
“The Design Compass methodology helped shape every decision we made, ensuring the product wasn’t just beautiful, but also commercially viable, environmentally responsible, and socially thoughtful. Using wood and metal to create a premium, tactile feel while reducing plastic use. Also, significantly lowered our tooling costs—by more than 60%—and relocated the majority of manufacturing to France reducing minimum order quantities.”
François Steiner, CEO Metrix Ltd
Timeline
2008
Stefan Knox, founder of Bang Creations, introduces the ‘Design for Market’ model, forming the core of the Design Compass. This model becomes a staple in workshops for businesses, universities, and the British Library’s Business and IP Centre, London.
2012
The team expands the model to include environmental considerations, introducing the ‘Planet’ ring.
2021
Bang Creations achieves B Corp certification, aligning profit with people and planet.
2021
onwards
The Design Compass is integrated into coursework for second-year students in Sustainable Product Design at Falmouth University and Product Design at the University of Chester.
2022
Lecturers Simon Andrews and Evy Dutheil from Falmouth University and Rebecca Falcon from the University of Chester work with Bang to integrate social responsibility into the design model.
2023
onwards
Working with industry experts to add further resources and insights.
