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A new brush

The humble toothbrush is changing, with new designs offering a "personalised brushing experience".

Ever since William Addis used the hairs and whittled thighbone of a cow to form the first toothbrush in 1780, the race has been on to improve toothbrush technology.

And just last year (2005) his innovative toothbrush designs won David Robinson a prestigious Design Direct Award.

The Design Direct Awards, sponsored by the UK's Royal Society of Arts, showcase the best of British and European design talent. Previous winners include Jonathan Ive, creator of the iPod and Andy Clark, designer of the Heathrow Express train. So David, a 22 year old student at Northumbria University in the UK, is in good company.

His prize is a six month internship with GlaxoSmithKline at its R&D site in Ware.

David designed a range of toothbrushes, the 'Aquafresh' design, that dispense toothpaste from a small rubber tip at the brush's head. When the toothpaste runs out, it is a cue for the user that it is time to buy a new brush head to prevent over-use.

Another of his designs is the 'Everclean' which has bristles moulded into rubber. This prevents the bristles from bending, but maintains flexibility which helps prevent the 'shaggy heads' found on other brushes.

'Fudge', another first, is a children's brush; the handle can be bent or moulded when warmed in water, enabling the child to personalise it by twisting or squeezing, or shaping it to their hand.

According to David, "I was inspired by the imperfections of current toothbrushes on the market - bristles that don't last long before they start to get 'shaggy' heads; the grip not being unique to your hand. Also, 'why can't you personalise', 'how do you know when you have the right amount of toothpaste' and 'why can't my toothbrush give me more than just clean teeth' were questions that I asked myself."

"When I was trying to think of the ideas I always tried to keep in mind that a chair is for sitting, yet we have thousands of different chairs - chairs that spring up when you press a button, chairs that massage your body whilst sitting down, to use two examples. All of these chairs have innovations that are specific to the application, so the same rules can be applied to a manual toothbrush".

So how does David feel about the award and the opportunity to work at GSK? "I hope to learn more about design, manufacture and marketing and to broadly enhance my skills and hopefully bring a fresh perspective and some new ideas to the mix".

David's achievement is not just theoretical; GSK Consumer Healthcare in Brühl, Germany, has filed a patent application for one of his designs.

So watch out for the "Fudge".