Icon: Sir James Dyson

From bagless vacs to blade-less fans

IT’S TIME AGAIN TO HAIL TECH’S BRIGHTEST SPARKS, those whose exciting new ideas and back-of-a-napkin sketches have not just tickled our aesthetic fancy but shaped the way we consider and consume our playthings. And there are few more instantly recognisable tech reinventors than Sir James Dyson.

For a man whose first design was a wheelbarrow (he replaced the wheel with a far more useful ball), Dyson has gone on to laser-focus his designs on the domestic, turning his innovative eye to vacuums, hand-dryers, washing machines, fans and taps, with each invention boasting a space-age aesthetic that hints temptingly at the smartness of the tech at work inside.