“To be a designer and to be creative, you have to think differently. You have to build ‘bandwidth’ in order to do this. You have to operate along the length of a line between industry and engineering and art and culture. Design does not exist in the centre of that line but ranges along the length of that line. It is this ‘bandwidth’ of thinking that creates designers. We need this ‘bandwidth’ – an understanding of science and engineering on the one hand and humanities, art and politics on the other – if we are to create a better future.

What is crucial to design is that we have to learn to look rather than see. Looking is active; seeing is passive. Designers see things that others do not. It is crucial to understand people. It needs a creative eye to see what is happening. Anthropology is more important than technology. The design process has three stages: idea, belief and embodiment; the idea is the most important. We have to shift paradigms to create new things. Be frustrated at how the world is and have an unshakeable belief in our ability to make it better.

We need constantly to ask ‘why not?’ rather than (the question many supposed ‘educated’ folk ask), ‘why?’ ”

Dick Powell – Senior partner and co-founder ‘SeymourPowell’ Product Designers