Cardboard campers

It’s the dream of any student designer to see their beloved final-year design pick up a clutch of awards and then actually get made – and used by real people! For a few designers each year who hit on the right idea, and have the talent to realise it, the dream comes true. The rest might have to work a little harder to get their careers started.

myhab: green alternative to ditching your festival tent

James Dunlop, who graduated in product design at the University of the West of England (UWE) back in 2006, has launched his career on the back of a truly brilliant idea for his final-year show. After seeing the thousands of abandoned, mud-soaked tents left behind at festivals, James hit on the idea of a pre-fab luxury tent made of recycled and recyclable materials, which festival-goers could use instead of bringing (and ditching) their own.

With UWE helping to promote the idea, James’s myhab concept secured backing from sponsors MINT very soon after graduating, as well as a clutch of design awards from New Designers 2006, Enterprising Young Brits and Bristol Design Festival. James has spent the time since setting up his own company and developing and marketing his launch product.

myhab is a reusable framework made of recycled plastic with a treated waterproof cardboard cover that can be personalised. James explained: “One of the inspirations behind my design was seeing the wasteful debris of tents left after the 2005 Glastonbury Festival. The beauty of the myhab is that it is erected on site before you arrive at a festival in a special enclosure with showers and toilets nearby especially reserved for myhab users. When the festival is over the myhab is dismantled, the plastic frames reused and the cardboard covers recycled, so it really is a green alternative to a tent and a lot less hassle.”

To think that I had planned to take a gap year and go snowboarding when I left university seems a bit of a joke now.
James Dunlop

Life, James continues, has been non-stop since graduation: “It’s all happened so fast. In some ways the entire project has been like an extension of my dissertation but with selling and production development thrown into the mix. To think that I had planned to take a gap year and go snowboarding when I left university seems a bit of a joke now.

“UWE really did set me up – the product design course opens your eyes to possibilities and how innovative you can be. Apart from the very thorough design training there is a crucial focus on learning how to present professionally. I know this training was critical to helping me get my initial sponsorship from MINT, as I had learned how to prepare and plan and to anticipate questions. The tutors are all fantastic and I was given so much initial support after my design won a prize at New Designers to take it forward.”

Tod Burton, product design programme director at UWE, said: “It’s very rewarding for the entire product design team to see how far James has taken his graduation project, developing a successful, viable product that has good sustainable thinking at its core. His success is a real inspiration for those students currently completing their own projects.”

James is now working on plans to take myhab into Europe and the US, and is considering a bid for a field at the 2012 Olympics – where low-cost accommodation will be at a premium. myhab launches in 2008 at T in the Park, Oxegen, Latitude, Wickerman, Reading, Leeds, Hydro Connect, Electric Picnic and End of the Road.