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Title: Duke of Edinburgh's prize for elegant design Pages: 26 - 28   
Author: Editorial Text: Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design Plastics tableware: Ekco Plastics' Nova Made by Ekco Plastics Limited, Southend. Designed by David Harman Powell, ASIA, Ekco's chief designer. (caption) The judging panel for this year's Duke of Edinburgh's Prize was Sir Colin Anderson, Hon DesRCA, Hon ARIBA; the Marchioness of Anglesey; the Duke of Edinburgh (chairman); Mrs Mary Ward, ARIBA, and Mr Robert Heritage, RDI, DesRCA, FSIA. The judges chose the Ekco Nova range of tableware because they felt that it represented a really successful solution to the many design and manufacturing problems associated with the development of plastics materials for this purpose. In this range the plastics is used as a material in its own right and not as a substitute for the traditional ceramic. Their report commented on the tendency to use, for plastics, forms originally developed for ceramic materials, a tendency which has means that many designs have been ill adapted to the newer materials. Nova tableware exploits plastics in forms which are both pleasing and entirely suitable to the material and the colours in which it can be made. The judges concluded that David Powell and the development team had achieved a range of products which combines the practical qualities of convenience and durability with shapes and colours of precision and elegance. The decision to develop such a new range was the sequel to a carefully conducted market study made by Ekco Plastics in 1965, which showed that prospects were good for the introduction of a new tableware range. To undertake the necessary research and development, a product planning committee was set up under the chairmanship of Michael Godfrey, then the company's managing director; within this team Mr Powell, the company's chief designer, was responsible for the design of the forms. After a study of possible materials, the committee concluded that styreneacrylonitrile co-polymer, a relatively new plastics, was the most suitable. Although it was a comparatively sophisticated and costly material, it had just benefited from a useful price reduction, and had a number of advantages over its rivals. In particular, its mechanical, thermal and chemical properties appeared to suit many of the requirements for tableware, such as rigidity, resistance to fracture and staining; and yet, being a thermoplastic rather than a thermosetting material, it could be moulded by the speedy process of injection. The technical disciplines imposed by plastics materials are stringent and the necessary development of form and tool design with moulding techniques calls for the closest possible co-ordination if a high rate of amortisation is to be matched by profits. Development costs are high, whereas product unit costs are low, and there is very little opportunity for altering the design after the tools have been made. It soon became clear that, if the broad design requirements were to be met, existing processing methods would have to be extended, particularly if decoration were to be achieved by a two-colour moulding process. The company finally decided to develop a transfer system for this which, although more expensive, would give consistently good results. With the basic problems of materials and process determined, Mr Powell was free to modify and adapt his range of forms. The basic consumer requirements for mass sales were stated in detail: the range had to be space-saving, stable, easy to clean and handle, nestable, stackable, modern looking, functional, and comparatively inexpensive; account had also to be taken of the potential market of institutional catering. The functional requirements of stackability involved carefully coordinated Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design/Plastics tableware dimensions in which unsightly surface chafing - a problem produced by stacking any plastics tableware - was minimised by transferring as many bearing surfaces as possible to rims and edges. Diameters were standardised into two groups with the saucer providing an interstacking link. Here, by an ingenious arrangement of planes in the cross section, the saucer exploits the mouldability of plastics by combining economy with strength, solving at the same time a number of practical problems. The raised boss holds the cup base firmly and also keeps i/fractionally clear of the saucer to prevent drips in use; the top rim of the cup fits under the boss for stacking and the rim of the saucer fits on to the rim of the cereal bowl. The saucer is easy to pick up and teaspoons settle into a convenient position. In moulding terms, the cup is the most complex of the forms and is subjected to the hardest use. Important decisions on the choice of wall thickness, taper of the rim, and point of conjunction of the two colours where they are touched by the lips, had to be carefully considered in the interests of both user comfort and technical success or failure of the flow pattern of the melt. With plastics, fractional alterations in dimensions, radii or process techniques impose substantial stress changes in the material, which can seriously affect the final performance of the product. The accurate resolution of these stresses was particularly critical in the area of the cup handle. This was shaped to suit two instinctive methods of holding cups, either with a finger through the handle or by a pinch hold. The loop-shaped handle was made generous enough to accommodate the first two sections of the forefinger, while the points of conjunction with the cup were flattened to provide a sense of stability and a thumb grip. As the mould for the handle, which forms part of the outer colour moulding, had to be split vertically, the flash line was neatly incorporated as part of the design. Because the handle itself provided the logical point of injection for the whole of the outside plastics moulding, the form given to it had also to provide an optimum and carefully directed pattern of injection flow. The point of injection itself with its pin gate mark was set unobtrusively beneath the lower strut. Throughout the entire range the designer has paid great attention to details of this kind, as in the choice of radii for cleaning and in the elimination of mould separation lines from all areas where food is present. It is to the credit of Mr Powell and the development team which supported him that, since its first introduction, the Nova range has required only slight modification, making it economically possible for the range of colourways to be extended. Prices: cup 4s 10d, saucer 2s 9d, small plate as 9d, milk jug 7s 6d, sugar bowl 4s 7d,cereal bowl 5s 3d. David Harman Powell, MSIA, is 35 and has been in charge of the industrial design studio at Ekco Plastics for the past eight years. He trained at the Southend College of Technology and School of Arts and Crafts, and afterwards travelled on an RSA industrial arts bursary to Scandinavia, Germany and Italy, studying the development of plastics. In 1952 he joined E. K. Cole (Ekco Radio and (Television); two years later he moved to the product design unit of BIP Chemicals Limited to work under their chief industrial designer A. H. WooUfull. During the following seven years he gained most of his technical knowledge of plastics processes and wasclosely involved with the development of Melamine tableware. In April 1960 he was appointed chief designer to Ekco Plastics, and under its successful "new-product management" structure Mr Powell is now a company executive sitting on both the product planning and company management committees. His main responsibility is for product innovation; he has designed most of the company's consumer products including kitchen storage containers, bathroom accessories, and nursery equipment. |
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