Second year University of Brighton Product Design students Adam Hargrave, Barnee Lloyd, Danny Hughes and Raul Jimenez have won a design competition held by global safety company FHOSS alongside with Brighton and Hove City Council.

They were working with self-illuminating fabric to help increase visibility of pedestrians and cyclists around roads at night time.

The group designed a reversible reflective jacket which can switch to plain or cycling mode, the latter being the side of the jacket with reflective materials added on it. It also has light strips running along the arms to use as indicators. Their design won Fhoss’ £1000 competition which particularly aimed towards the younger generation’s safety on the roads. This is a great solution due to its ability to offer a plain jacket mode as well as the high visibility mode, as most high-vis clothing is rather hideous and not attractive to the younger target market.

Brighton and Hove is known for having a cyclist and pedestrian safety problem and was named last year as the most dangerous city for cyclists and pedestrians.

The council has worked with our design studio on projects before to help make their streets safer. In 2011 they worked with Emily Brooke in the early stages of her Blaze bike light, which has since gone under a lot of development and recently been launched on kickstarter.com.

Brighton Product Lab