WEEKLY DIGEST

Short film on British Design in 2012, promoting the recently opened exhibition at the V&A (OEN)

Interview with Bristol based bike frame builder Robin Mather (Rapha)

Buying British (Guardian)

Olympic torch wins Design of the Year award (Creative Review)

Airbus and Boeing boosted by passenger jet boom (Telegraph)

Inside a Glaswegian letterpress (Form Fifty Five via It's Nice That)

Creatives are manufacturers (Computer Arts)

BT to sell off iconic K6 phoneboxes (FT)

Interview with furniture designer Michael Marriott (Spitalfields Life)

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Photo of Michael Marriott from Spitalfields Life

WEEKLY DIGEST

Inside the Carradice factory, Nelson, Lancashire. Brilliant slideshow and interview with owner and MD, David Chadwick (The Bike Show)

Four great posts, featuring factory visits in Sussex by artist Carly Mayer. Personal favourite is the ratchet strap (Sight Unseen)

100 Secrets of Mackintosh: 100 interviews with 'tastemakers' about the brand (Renaissance Chambara)

Dyson vs China in intellectual property row (Guardian)

Nice piece on young talent in farming (Telegraph)

WEEKLY DIGEST

Items of note on manufacturing in the UK and related subjects from the last week:

The newly unveiled McLaren production centre looks pretty swish (Design Boom)

Inside Pashley: Britain's oldest bicycle maker (Humans Invent)

"The design and making of things is terribly important, especially at this moment in time." Sir Terence Conran on Front Row (BBC R4)

Why doesn't Britain make things anymore? (Guardian)

related: Aditya Chakrabortty on the 'de-industrial revolution' (BBC R3)

Fiat boss urges CBI: keep UK factories open (Guardian)

McLaren image from Design Boom

WEEKLY DIGEST

Manufacturing in the news this week:

What the economists have to say on the current state of UK manufacturing (Guardian)

The passion for UK manufacturing (BIS)

Photo by David Jones

WEEKLY DIGEST

Things we've found on British manufacturing, making and design (sources in brackets) this week:

How Derby is uniting over Bombardier cuts (FT)

'Romanticising the handmade', according to Justin McGuirk (The Guardian)

Behind the scenes on the Cherchbi production line (Cherchbi blog)

Nissan's Sunderland factory has been breaking world records (Repair a Car)

Image from the Cherchbi blog

HOW VINYL IS MADE : VF MANUFACTURING

The Vinyl Factory Manufacture from thevinylfactory on Vimeo.

VF Manufacturing is the last major plant in the UK, pressing around 25,000 records a week (according to The Guardian).

BRITISH FASHION: WORTH LOTS OF MONEY

"This is just the first step," noted (Harold) Tillman (chairman of the British Fashion Council.) "I am committed to driving this forward and to ensuring that we come together as an industry to work with government to discuss forthcoming challenges and agree the support required to overcome them."

Read all about it here in The Guardian

Full report here

Picture of Harold Tillman from the BFC

HOORAH HENRY

'In the last quarter of 1997, manufacturing accounted for 21% of lending from British financial institutions while the property business (building, buying, renting) took up 16%. In the first quarter of 2010, the figures were 8.5% to manufacturing and 43.4% to property.'

This stark fact appeared in Mr. Ian Jack's piece in The Guardian on Saturday. It was not all doom and gloom however - Jack reported that Numatic, the Somerset based company that makes the oddly charismatic 'Henry' vacuum cleaner, has enjoyed 40 years of growth without a dip in turnover.

See the article in all its glory here.

(Images © Numatic International Ltd 2010)

TW ABLETT, SHEFFIELD

Click on the title for a pleasing article about the working processes employed by Mr. Trevor Ablett, who makes pocket knives in Sheffield.

Written by Mr. Jon Henley and published in yesterday's Guardian 'Work' section.

Thanks due to Mr. Mike Knight for nudging us in the direction of this informative piece.

Photo credit: Christopher Tomond