- Awards recognize the most innovative designs across fashion, architecture, digital, transport, product and graphic design, as nominated by the public and design experts from around the world
- Design will be on display in The Design Museum in London until March 2021
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“It’s basically like the Lego equivalent for music and allows children to experiment” Michael Tougher
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As a final year Product Design Engineering student at The Glasgow School of Art in 2015, Michael Tougher developed the prototype for Soundbops, an educational instrument which helps children to learn music. Now five years on his innovative product has been shortlisted in the world’s most prestigious design awards. The nominees for the Beazley Design of the Year awards, which recognize the most innovative designs across fashion, architecture, digital, transport, product and graphic design, as put forward by the public and design experts from around the world, were announced at London’s Design Museum today, 20 October 2020. Soundbops is shortlisted in the Product design category in the annual global awards and exhibition. This most recent accolade follows Michael’s success in the Scottish EDGE awards in 2019 where he secured £50k investment to build his business.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be shortlisted in these awards and to be in such august company,” says the 28-year old Scottish designer
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Designer Michael Tougher at work on his award-nominated product, Soundbops |
Although he studied Product Design Engineering at University, Michael is also a musician. “I was fortunate that my dad taught me to play the guitar, but I was aware than many people don’t have access to a musical instrument and I wanted to help them to make and enjoy music,” he says.
So Michael applied his creativity and developed Soundbops – a revolutionary musical instrument designed specifically to teach children how to read, play and enjoy music. It is made up of brightly coloured musical building blocks that each play a different musical note when pressed. They can also be moved around, rearranged and piled on top of one another in any order. The fact the blocks are colour coded simplifies music. The product is supported by a learning curriculum that gives children the skills they will need for a life of music.
“It’s basically like the Lego equivalent for music and allows children to experiment,” adds Michael.
Soundbops is the only musical building blocks on the market and what makes it unique is that children can use it alone making it easy to teach themselves. Speaking to a national newspaper in 2018 Michael explained why he set up Soundbops as a business.
“I have always been quite creative. My product design and engineering at university consisted of Mechanical Engineering taught at the University of Glasgow and Design at The Glasgow School of Art. Setting up my own business seemed to be a natural progression from that course. I have always wanted to run my own company as it allows me to be as creative as I want to be.”
“Michael’s approach to the challenge of teaching music is a tremendous example of how our students use their creativity to approach a whole range of challenges,” says Penny Macbeth, Director of The Glasgow School of Art.
“Creativity and innovation are key drivers of economic success and Michael also demonstrates how our graduates are able to turn their creativity into sustainable businesses contributing to Glasgow’s economy,” she adds.
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Note for Editors
Product Design Engineering
Established by the industrial designer and former GSA Director, Professor Dugald Cameron, the programme is jointly delivered by The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow. It has produced some of leading designers of their generation with graduates have gone on to senior roles in major international companies including Jonathan Biddle – Industrial Design Senior Manager, Amazon; Amy Corbett, Senor Designer – Lego; Etienne Iliffe-Moon – Experience Research (San Francisco) for BMW; Scott McGuire – SVP Global Engineering & Operations at Dyson; and Sam Smith – Principal CEO, Apple. Others have established their own successful companies including Fearsome,4c Design – creators of the iconic Queen’s Baton for the 2014 Commonwealth games, Filament, Speck Design – and Aircraft Medical, which was sold to Medtronic plc in 2015 for $110 million. Graduates have also developed award-winning products including Dan Watson who scooped the international Dyson Award in 2012