Museum of Design in Plastics: Durabeam torch, BIB Design Consultants, 1982

In the early 1980s, I can clearly remember one day when my Father returned from work and presented a strange object to the family. It was made of plastic, rectangular in shape and coloured black with a yellow strip running around the edge. We couldn’t guess what it was (we weren’t allowed to touch it!), so he put us out of our misery by proudly flipping open the hinged top to reveal a lit bulb. It was a torch, but unlike any we had seen before and operating in a completely different way (no on/off switch, you simply opened/closed the pivoting lid). We were specifically instructed that we could not play with it - this was NOT a toy - which was a shame as I found it fascinating and was already imagining using it as some sort of Blake’s 7 futuristic teleportation device.

Image ref: The pocket-sized Durabeam torch.
Image credit: Katherine Pell

The reason this childhood recollection was prompted was due to a recent enquiry we had received at MoDiP, from a woman still using her Durabeam torch all these years later. It had stopped working but she had forgotten how to change the batteries and sought our help. We were able to assist her with full instructions on how to remove the side panel in order to access the battery compartment.

Image ref: The side panel removed to access the batteries.
Image credit: Katherine Pell

MoDiP has two examples of the Durabeam torch in both the small and larger size.

Image ref: AIBDC : 0_6429 and 0_6474
Image credit: MoDiP

The Durabeam was designed in 1982 by R.J. Winstone, A. Forman, P.J. Pope and J. Drane of BIB Design Consultants, a company formed by Nick Butler, Peter Isherwood and Stephen Bartlett in 1967. Duracell UK Ltd, a subsidiary of the US battery manufacturer, wanted to enhance the sale of their batteries within Europe (at that time they held a 25% market share). They conducted extensive consumer research for products that used batteries and ultimately identified the potential for manufacturing a small, portable torch that could provide the solutions to those aspects that customers were currently unsatisfied by. For example, people often needed their hands free to tackle a job but found they had to hold the torch to direct the beam. The on/off switch was often found to be unreliable and a common complaint was that the lens would break easily.

As a one product company (ie. alkaline batteries), Duracell had no internal design department so they invited three industrial design agencies to submit proposals for this new torch. BIB were successful, answering the brief with early concept sketches that illustrated distinctive geometric forms, using only the Duracell corporate colours of black and yellow.

Image ref: An early concept sketch (left) and two models (centre and right).
Image credit: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285588693_Illuminating_Design

In an interview published in 1984, Nick Butler said:

'Duracell were enlightened clients – they’d never made anything but batteries before. We knew that play value was important: kids like to read comics with torches. We also knew that no designer had yet done a good torch. The brief was to sell batteries, so the solution had to be cheap. We thought go for a light source, not a torch.’

It was this thinking that allowed the design to develop in such a different way to traditional torch forms and an idea that Duracell were particularly keen to adopt was the articulated head. John Drane prototyped the mechanism, applying various pressures through a process of trial and error to achieve the correct ratchet strength. Other design modifications included simplifying the battery cover to snap fit over pegs moulded into the body, thereby reducing mould tooling costs, and the black coloured external surfaces being given a matt finish to disguise imperfections caused by uneven shrinkage in the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) material selected.

The final robust product was launched in two sizes (home and pocket), priced slightly higher than its competitors but with batteries included so the product was ready to work immediately. It was also the first torch to be advertised and a contemporary report records how people were coming into the shops with magazine cuttings to specifically seek out the Durabeam. Released in the UK in September 1982, 450,000 torches were sold in the first three months with sales achieving over 3 million just two years later.

Image ref: 1980s advert: it stands up, lies down, bends over backwards, and then completely disappears.
Image credit: https://www.hatads.org.uk/catalogue/record/09d13feb-a89a-4180-b352-fa2b846837b0

Awarded a Design Council award for Design Excellence in Consumer and Contract Goods: Durable Products, 1984, the awards judging panel commented that 'Durabeam is a compelling product - one wants to hold it, use it, buy it, which is after all essential to good design'.