Stasis: Dyson Award Winner

A two-week, intensive design challenge

Every year, Arts University Bournemouth's Graphic Design course runs a design challenge run by the creative team at Dyson. In 2025, the challenge was to design an identity and strategy for a device made by ACT Medical, which is designed to stem critical bleeding from gunshot and stab wounds.

The process

I always start a project by dissecting the brief I've been given and noting down any immediate ideas and areas that I know I need to research. For this brief, we needed to determine two audiences for the product, which was going to be sold business-to-business instead of business-to-consumer. My primary audience was the Metropolitan Police and my secondary audience was teachers and first aiders at London secondary schools.

Three routes

This project required 3 distinct visual identity routes for the first round of critique, which were then narrowed to one. I aimed for a wide visual range with my initial routes, with each having a different tone of voice and focal theme. Route 1 was based around time and criticality, route 2 was about empowering first responders and route 3 was about how the device—named REACT at the time—could enable communities to help their citizens.

Copy and Naming

Dyson has a naming hierarchy system that allows their product advertising to convey different levels of information depending on the context. For this project, I needed to create a copy matrix to define the product's class and descriptor, as well as its claim and any supporting copy. This element of my outcome was noted by Dyson as one of the strongest parts of my proposal.

Designing a parent company

This brief also required a brand identity for the parent company of the device, ACT Medical. I went down the traditional medical/innovative visual route, using calming and trustworthy shades of blue with an assertive and modern wordmark and typeface.

The final concept

I presented my final proposal to Chris, Ali and Harriet from the Dyson creative team, Nathan from ACT Medical and to my coursemates and lecturers. I was then selected as the winner of the project for my university, despite completing the challenge solo while others were in teams of 3.