Category: Graduate stories

Sustainable bag made from courier uniform

Design graduates team up to turn waste ‘gig economy’ uniforms into sustainable bags

A Product Design graduate has earned a collaboration with alumni Tom Meades’ sustainable design studio, gomi, to make bags from waste courier uniforms.

Angus Clifford, who graduated from the university this summer with a degree in Product Design BSc(Hons), has teamed up with Tom Meades, co-founder and chief designer at gomi, to bring Angus’s final year university project to life.

Each year, millions of courier uniforms for companies including Deliveroo, Just East, Uber Eats – and many more – are handed out, most of which ultimately end up in landfill. Angus’s project, which was among the many innovative solutions showcased by Brighton students at this year’s Graduate Summer Shows (Instagram), focused on finding a sustainable response to this waste challenge.

Tom and Angus sitting next to each other looking at a laptop
Tom Meades (left) and Angus Clifford
Sustainable bag made out of courier uniform
Sustainable bag made out of courier uniform
Hands holding a piece of material
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Graduates 2024: Jamie Singleton: Architecture BA(Hons)

I loved the aspect of circular economy that the University of Brighton really drove and the problem-solving attached with it. It presented a real challenge that I loved working to solve.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

Throughout my time here at Brighton the emphasis on designing with sustainability has been so incredibly strong, so in this semester I really wanted to take it to a new level. Tutors such as Duncan Baker-Brown, Glenn Longden-Thurgood, Tony Roberts and Ian Bailey have really pushed me to explore the relationships between locations and longevity as a means to create a hyperlocal, vernacular project. This semester I have explored the concept of ‘rearranging landscape’ – the idea of using onsite (or local materials) that harvested in more traditional formats and adapting them in a contemporary, yet approachable format.  

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A laptop with a computer game on the screen and a hand reaching for it

Graduates 2024: Hanna Harings-Mahendra: Product Design BSc(Hons)

Organising the course so that each student can be their individual selves makes the course well worth it.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

My project is called Recover Quest, it’s a rehabilitation video game for injury recovery, focusing on the hand and wrist and uses real time hand tracking. The project is partially influenced by myself as I have a condition called erbs palsy which means limited rotation and range of motion in one arm. I rarely do my exercises and wanted to find out if others felt the same and that’s how this project started!

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Stuart Green profile image

From the University of Brighton to Director at Google

Stuart Green tells us about his journey from a Software Engineering degree to Director of User Experience at one of the world’s most recognisable brands in Google.

The Brighton Effect can take your career down many different paths. It just so happens, that this particular path has led to a senior position at tech mega-giant and one of the world’s well-known names – Google.

We caught up with Stuart Green who tells us about being a mature student at Brighton along with the support he received, to where he is now and his work with Google.

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bag collection on an orange background

Graduates 2024: Angus Clifford, Product Design BSc(Hons)

The best aspect of my studies would be the strong studio culture we have on the course, I’m basically in five days a week and have a permanently allocated space which has given me the opportunity to set up what feels like a mini studio.

Please tell us a bit about your work and your influences

Throughout my time as a designer, I have been exploring effective ways of rebreathing life into waste materials. I have more recently been focusing on how design can be used as a tool to raise awareness of social and environmental issues by not just developing a beautiful object, but also communicating a compelling story behind it which I believe is equally as important.

My final year project: ‘ReUSed’ is a critical design project that raises awareness of the social issues takeaway couriers face, as well as the environmental impact of their discarded uniforms.

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Matt Reed in the Bognor Regis Time Portal

Brighton graduate’s time portal design boosts tourism at Bognor Regis seafront

University of Brighton graduate Matt Reed is the artist behind a new technology bringing the rich history of the coastal town of Bognor Regis to life.

Beginning as an idea while studying an Architectural and Urban Design MA at the University of Brighton, Bognor Regis Time Portal allows visitors to use their own phones or tablets to get a glimpse of Victorian-era Bognor, with 3D recreations of the wooden bathing machines that once lined the town’s beach.

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Picture of Joel Wallace, architecture alumnus

Importance of community spirit at Brighton and beyond

Architecture graduate Joel Wallace Erabu shares how his experience at the University of Brighton has led him to help disadvantaged communities and inspire the next generation of architects. 

Joel Wallace Erabu tells us about how being at Brighton university, and his experience of the city itself, gave him a powerful sense of community – and how he has applied this to his own international career and principles.

In addition to the multiple impressive industry recognitions he has received, he also donates a lot of time to mentoring future architects and has spent time working on charitable projects to help disadvantaged communities back home in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Prayaag Pandya profile photo

Construction Site Manager part of award-winning team with a love for Brighton

Meet Prayaag Pandya, a Construction Management graduate whose professional journey is rooted in his education at the University of Brighton.

The Brighton Effect is all about the foundations that your time at the university provides you with and how you carry this into your professional career, putting your own individual stamp on the journey.

Prayaag epitomises both this sentiment and the graduate attribute of a resilient self-advocate with both his project management and leadership skills, and his desire to seek out career development opportunities such as obtaining chartered status with professional bodies.

We caught up with him to find out more about his time at Brighton, some of the award-winning teams he has been part of and how he applies things he learnt at university to provide a theoretical basis to tackle real-world work scenarios including in his role now at Galliford Try.

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My dissertation helped me become a project engineer with global company

My name is Alice Grimwood, a BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering graduate from the university of Brighton. I graduated in 2022 and worked in the STEP Lab (Sustainable Technology and Engineering Projects) for my Final Year Dissertation and over the summer period. The focus of my dissertation was the Nano-fluids test-bed where I continued the build, and test improvements in thermal systems.

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