Freeplay radio triumphs in BBC design awards

TKO’s Andy Davey and inventor Trevor Baylis are the BBC Designers of the Year after their Freeplay clockwork radio triumphed in the 1996 BBC Design Awards.

The radio also won the product category, with Pethick & Money’s Flexible Food Wrap leading the graphics section and Bramante Architects taking the architecture prize for the Chessington Citizens Advice Bureau.

Pethick & Money’s fast food packaging also won Audi’s best use of technology prize, chosen by Mary Lewis, Ken Grange and Sir Michael Hopkins, who chaired the shortlisting panels.

More than 60 000 votes were cast by the public. The awards ceremony was hosted by Janet Street-Porter at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum.

Conceived by Baylis and designed by Davey, the radio was a clear winner with the public, polling significantly more votes than any other contender. The wooden Mekong Wheelchair by Motivation’s Simon Gue and Ian Harris came second, both overall and in the product category.

Davey says winning the title is “absolutely brilliant”. He adds: “It’s a big endorsement from the people we are trying to communicate with – far more rewarding than any other acknowledgement we have had.”

Davey praises Baylis, saying: “Trevor is an off the wall inventor but also a really nice bloke and he deserves all the success he is getting. People have obviously identified with his invention and the way we developed it.”