A London product and service design consultancy, founded by Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, known for kettles, bathroom products, packaging and consumer research.
Seymourpowell is a design consultancy in London. It made its name in product design, which is the design of everyday objects, but it has long worked on more than that. A 2008 announcement lists product, packaging and brand design, together with strategy, research, trend forecasting and studies of how people actually use things. The same announcement names projects such as digital shower systems for Aqualisa, chair lifts for Stannah, packaging for Dove, and machines for Coffee Nation. A 2014 Design Week interview adds a long relationship with Tefal, including the first cordless kettle, and a bra called the Bioform for Charnos.
The company is named after its founders, Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, who celebrated 30 years together in 2014. In that interview Dick Powell said the aim at the start was to be one of three names on the shortlist when a company like Sony looked for outside designers. He said the two started out of passion, wanting to do better work, and that money came second. Richard Seymour's advice for newcomers was to be optimistic, bold and brilliant. The founders also made a Channel 4 series in 2000 called Better by Design, which helped explain design to the public. A directory profile on leManoosh now describes the company as design researchers, strategists, brand experts, and product, UX and UI designers and makers.
In the UK, the company is based in south-west London. The 2008 announcement gives Southfields, and leManoosh lists The Factory, 265 Merton Road, London. We did not find any evidence of other UK offices. The directory entry says its track record stretches back over 40 years, which fits a company that began in the 1980s, but no source we read gave a founding date.
On people and culture, the 2014 article says about 200 current and former staff came to its 30th anniversary party. Dick Powell described many colleagues as friends and said the company had grown into a business that can outlast its founders. In 2008 its senior team included design directors, a creative director for packaging, a finance director and a leader of a forecasting and research unit called SeymourpowellForesight. Several people had stayed since the late 1990s. These are company and press statements, and the details are old.
A consultancy like this needs product designers, packaging designers, user-experience and interface designers, researchers who talk to the people who will use a product, strategists, model makers and the finance and project staff who keep jobs on time. If you like taking things apart, sketching ideas and asking why something is awkward to use, it is a good example of where that curiosity can become a career. Because the evidence we found is dated, check its current website for what it does now.
Website: www.seymourpowell.com
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