The Big Life Fix on BBC 2

August 14th, 2018

Have you been watching the The Big Fix on BBC 2? Because we love it.

If you haven’t (which you really should), here’s the show in a nutshell. It’s reached far and wide across the UK to create a team of 8 design superheros. The group is compiled of leading industrial and computer engineers, designers and scientists, all with creating ingenious new inventions in common. Using cutting edge science and tech, they use their award winning expertise to create life changing solutions for people in desperate need. And it’s right up our street.

The last three weeks we’ve seen the designers help amputees, disabled children, people with the rarest conditions and much more by amazing modern design.

Other than making us well up, we watched in awe as the experts explore different design options and industries to create these amazing tools and solutions to turn their lives around. It’s certainly inspired our designers in-house, too. James McInerny (head of design at Innovate) said: “I’ve loved watching the series so far, it’s really made me start to think outside the box in new ways with my upcoming projects.”. What we love is watching the whole process of starting from scratch and making something completely new – it also shows how much work and skill goes into making a one off prototype. The process will of course need deeper thought and refining if these products were to go to manufacture (what with tooling, materials and pricing etc. to think about), but watching the free range creativity is food for the product-design-soul.

My favourite design that was shown was in episode one with hair dresser, Kyle. He was born with a deformed hand which was keeping him from qualifying from his course. Engineer Jude Pullen created him a stylish custom attachment that he could wear that gave him the dexterity required to work as a professional hair dresser. Not only would this help him, but it would most likely be more helpful than two hands alone. It also had an Bionic-Edward-Scissorhands vibe which gives it double points!

The final episode is being aired this Thursday at 8pm. Catch up on BBC iPlayer and tell us what you think on our social media pages.