Adam Boulton, Editor at Large

This week's global excitement over the launch of the latest iPhone models confirms that the most famous product designer in the world is British.

Apple's chief of design was born in England, educated in London, Stafford and Newcastle and got his start at Tangerine, a design agency based in Hoxton in the capital's trendy East End.

Jony Ive, or Sir Jonathan Ive as he now is, has been a key player building Apple into what is now one of the biggest companies in the world. The Mac and 'i' consumer goods he has designed have changed the world we live in now and how it looks.

Yet, like so many home grown designs and designers, Ive found fame and fortune abroad - in America's Silicon Valley.


Belatedly, UK policy makers are waking up to this costly brain drain, and government, non-governmental agencies are launching initiatives to nurture British design.

One such scheme is the annual Spark Showcase which unveiled its 2017 winners last Tuesday at a gallery in Hoxton (where else?).

The show was an impressive display of young British talent but also a timely reminder of the hurdles they face making a living.

Spark has been running for the past three years.

The show was an impressive display of young British talent but also a timely reminder of the hurdles they face making a living.

The Design Council funds most of it courtesy of the tax payer. Design industry professionals volunteer help and Arthritis Research UK is a partner sponsor.

It is no bad thing for a disabled charity to be involved. If a design works for the physically impaired, the able bodied are likely to find it simple to use as demonstrated by many of the ten designs chosen for Spark 2017.

Wheelchair bound Fiona Jarvis has designed Drink, a universal glass and bottle holder, which got her up the ramp to collect her prize without spilling a drop.

Nubbit by Clair Boubli is a friendly and colourful palm-sized gizmo which holds to or stands up tablets and phones as work screens. No need now for smears on the screen or chunky cases.

Image: Nubbit. Pic: Spark

Workey is a pocket sized device providing leverage to help turn keys in locks. Useful for those with reduced dexterity or coming home after a long night out.

Supporters of Ocean Rescue, Sky's campaign against single use plastics, will want to grab a CamCup - a re-useable hot beverage cup made from recycled coffee grounds and eco-friendly glue.

For my friends in the cycling community, AirBreathe offers an innovative mask and Nick Rawcliffe of Detail has designed a folding helmet, which packs away to half its size with no compromise in protection provided.

This year's other designs are Fuzl's reusable flat-pack furniture, Cue Sense's smart glasses for the visually impaired, Phydroponics' deep water culture growth system and KikkaDigga which makes gardening easier.

Image: Workey. Pic: Spark

Spark puts its designers through an intensive 16-week course on how to develop and market their products, backed up with £15,000 each of funding.

Martin Darbyshire of the Design Council and Tangerine, the agency where Ive got his start, says the new designers now face two big challenges: turning their ideas into a viable business and protecting their IP - intellectual property rights - from being ripped off and developed by someone else.

There is big money to be made and it is certainly not all from high tech.

Darbyshire treasures a hairdresser's comb which Jony Ive streamlined for the market. Several million of them have since been sold, and the hairdresser who thought them up originally gets £7 a time.

If all this sounds like rather small beer - it is.

Helping 10 designers a year to get started is a worthy but modest effort by the UK.

Even the lucky bright Sparks still have a long way to go to make it like Ive. They need sponsors, partners and investors.

We'll all benefit if they manage to find them here at home.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Michelle Clifford - Time to end EU's travelling circus