At our event, Clara and Adrian will be talking about the importance of empathy in designing products and services. They will also tell us about another aspect of their work — introducing people with the feeling of magic and surprise in using their inventions.


Clara is a Creative Director and Adrian is a Director of Technology & Magic at Special Projects — a Design and Invention studio based in London. The studio has created innovations for companies including Samsung, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Logitech. Its mission is to enhance the unquantifiable aspects of life: empathy, well-being, delight, with meaningful design and invention. To achieve this they leverage human insight, technology and the thought process of magicians.

Adrian is a self-taught magician since the age of 11 and a full member of the Magic Circle. He relentlessly pursues his conviction that "designers should use magic thinking and try to introduce surprise, delight and fuzzy feeling in the things they create." He is also the first ever James Dyson Innovation Fellow with his product Magic Light.


Clara is an intrepid designer, inventor, and creative director committed to enriching the lives of people through hopeful product innovation. Whether this means helping the elderly to engage with technology, reimagining the playground, or devising systems that help us focus on the present, Clara's concepts bring empathy, optimism, and clarity to where society needs it.


Just one of the projects that highlight human-centered design approach at Special Projects is "Out of the Box" for Samsung. The studio helped Samsung understand why elderly people were reluctant smartphone users and designed creative solutions around the issue that empowered people to engage more with mobile technology.

Both Adrian and Clara are visiting senior lecturers at Royal College of Art and Queen Mary University of London, and are associates at Helen Hamlyn Centre at RCA. On top of that, Adrian also teaches at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design and Clara is a faculty member at  the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme at Oxford University Saïd Business School.