Against the Odds
In this updated autobiography, the British inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner tells the story of his incredible struggle to design and launch a machine that worked better than all others.
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Entertaining and interesting read, written in 2007 it seems like he totally saw the financial crisis coming. Lots of good points about inventions, iterative development and creating businesses.
Why did I pick this book?
I'm an Industrial Product Designer, so for me it's very interesting to get a peak into the mind of a fellow designer and a acclaimed one at that. This book was furthermore recommended by Jude Pullen, an interesting Designer with a great YouTube channel to boot.
The book/story
This is an autobiography by James Dyson, inventor of -amongst others- the bagless vaccuum cleaner. Describing his childhood in England, to his studies at the RCA and his many, many adventures designing, producing and selling his different inventions up to the DC-02 (and a hint at DC-03, 04 and 05).
My recommendation
I really enjoyed this book. Dyson has an interesting tone of voice in writing, intermixed with lovely english vocabulary. I found his way of describing his design life less pompous and more down to earth than Adrian Newey (How to Build a Car).
At times I found Dyson a bit grumpy, multiple times he starts complaining multiple pages about the state of manufacturing in England -which is at times outdated and not interesting for readers that are not from England.
Other than that I really enjoyed this book and am interested to read more about Dyson's following projects/products and/or the way of designing of the Dyson company.
