Clive Solari – D3Design

In July 2006 Clive Solari kindly agreed to spare me some of his time. Clive is co-director of the busy D3Design in Paddington, Sydney, whose ‘Safezone’ solar powered road-marker is set to make significant improvements (and hopefully trigger greater interest) in road safety. In addition, Clive is New South Wales President of the Design Institute of Australia and appeared on ABC television’s New Inventors.

In 1979 Clive graduated from Leicester Polytechnic in the UK before working for the Ronson company. The materials knowledge gained in this time, particularly in plastics, was invaluable to his future in design consultancies.

Coming to Australia in 1999, he noticed the standard of design left a lot to be desired. Fortunately he’s seen a substantial improvement in recent years, though if there is anything he’d cite as a weakness, it’s the lack of pen and marker drawing skills. Stunning digital models may superficially camouflage a flawed design, but are no help concepting and won’t impress an experienced designer.

On the subject of design ethics, Clive obviously has plenty of industry experience to draw on. Offered a commission to design a computer casing capable of surviving a nuclear attack, Clive (no great advocate of atomic weapons) might have easily refused. Instead, Clive thought about what positive slant he could apply to the situation. If machines could be protected like this, why not people, medical equipment…? Could ecologically aware materials and practices be incorporated into the design and manufacture?

Clive’s experience is that environmentally friendly materials can be assimilated into mainstream design but should not be forced into a bad fit. The Safezone requires glass fibre reinforcement. While not ideal, it is essential to make it robust while keeping it economically viable – neglect these factors and the device never makes it into production, full-stop.

Clive referred to materials in three levels of desirability; ‘recycled’ at the top, next ‘recyclable’ and then ‘non-recyclable’. He’s apt to encourage greater thought on materials which may suffer from prejudice. Such a material is aluminium, frequently derided for its production costs. However, once it’s been manufactured, aluminium’s light so it’s cheap to transport, makes low-inertia (fuel efficient) components and can be recycled relatively cheaply thanks to its low melting point. The DIA has resources to help guide designers in these matters and a great place to start is the online article, ‘Are You a Dirty Designer?’

Clive also made time to talk me through some of his experiences from recent commissions, with Perth based rapid prototyping experts Solid Concepts playing a greater role than I expected. He gave numerous other insights into the top-end of the design market and one theme stood out. An open-minded, rational approach is a huge asset and one that has stood Clive in good stead. If it’s good enough for Clive Solari, student designers could do far worse than to bear it in mind.