Aetha Design - Update 27th March 2020

These are difficult times for everyone, and we have been grateful for the positive messages and calls we've received from our clients and families. We thought at the end of this first working week in lockdown we would give you a bit of an update on our team, our work & of course WFH. We took the decision to move out of our Poole Quay workshop studio and are now all working from our homes. With a design workshop, industrial sewing machines, 3 x 3D printers and a team this isn't the easiest thing but we have made it work. We have Dan based up in Nottingham and Josh, Tom & Sophie all operating from the temporary office/workshop “aka the kitchen” in Penn Hill, Poole.

The spare bedroom has become a temporary 3D printing workshop & the garage, where Aetha was founded back in 2018, has come back to life. Our new spray booth is essentially a washing line and the only member of the team fully adjusted to the move so far is Phoebe, our CFO (4 legged friend.)We have been discussing that we would like to support people in this time and so we have been trying to come up with ways of helping. Despite Tom & Josh no longer being at Dyson (who have just had an order of 10,000 ventilators from the government) we do have a design team and workshop which is in close proximity to 2 hospitals so in essence we should and could be useful.We have had clients suggesting we 3D print parts for the NHS (which we have contacted through the relevant channels) we have also been in touch with our local hospitals & asked if they need us to provide anything/help their engineering teams in the coming weeks. Our friends who are Doctors, Nurses & frontline teams for the NHS have given us some ideas about how we can initially help them, we have already sent them some wipe clean phone cases from our clients at Aquapac, and over the last couple days we have started test printing a visor/face shield which can easily be refreshed with laminated sheets - a very quick and cost effective way to ensure front line teams have additional safety protective equipment if they do run out in the coming weeks. We are just looking at how we can optimise the printer bed and make them easier to use before sending them to some of our friends who work as Doctors & Nurses for testing and feedback.We are being sure to support our clients with their project work as some seem to be using this time working from home, as an opportunity to finally concentrate on their side business or further invest in R&D, but we thought we would see if anyone at home (especially design students who are currently worrying about how they are going to approach a job after this time) wanted us to talk about anything. Do you want help on your portfolios, ideas on personal projects or simply to talk to a designer about an idea? We are happy to donate time to those who may be looking for a bit of inspiration.In the coming weeks, we will make sure to write a weekly blog about what our favourite design books & design films, podcasts and of course products are. If you have any ideas or have a topic you wish for us to discuss, just let us know. We may even get the camera shy design team talking live on Instagram or Facebook.We want to thank you for your continued support - stay safe, be kind and keep in touch with us online and through our social media channels, as we look ahead to brighter days where we can go outside again as much as we like to get that creative juices flowing again. In the mean time, enjoy your daily exercise and don't take this weather for granted.