I first struck a friendship with Graeme MacDonald more than 20 years ago over our mutual admiration of furniture. At the seminal industrial design consultancy, Design Field in Paddington where I started my career, I would pore over Graeme’s enviable collection of rare furniture design books on B&B Italia, Charles and Ray Eames and Jean Prouve. MacDonald of Cube Design is an award winning industrial designer of consumer products that have sold in the millions most notable of all perhaps is the Ikon kettle for Breville which he codesigned with another design mentor of mine, Paul Cohen.

His account of how he won the job gives us a fascinating insight into how unsolicited design pitches succeed or fail. Also In this episode we talk about the design heroes that inspired us and discover that, like most things of this nature - it’s generational.