New Designers 2011: Kingston University graduate Andre Pereira has created a series of products to help with tricky DIY tasks, including these paint brushes that clip onto the edge of a tin of paint.
The DIY series also includes a brush guard that holds bristles together for neater corners and edges.
In addition, Pereira presented colour-coded wire strippers to help with wiring a plug and proposes that a plug's prongs could be insulated with colour-coded plastic.
A heat-sensitive sticker attached to radiators would indicate when they need bleeding.
Pereira presented the project at graduate show New Designers 2011, which took place 6-9 July in London.
See all our coverage of the event here.
Here are some more details from Andre Pereira:
DIY Series: Painting
Brush Guard, Overhang Paint Can, Hanging Brush
The painting series promotes a clean working environment, through permitted conveniences, and reducing the amount of skill needed to carry out a professional job.
The 'Brush Guard' restricts the brushes bristles from spanning out when pressure is applied, giving the user greater control when painting straight lines. It also promotes tool longevity to often throw away tools keeping the brushes shape when not in use. Both the 'Overhang paint can' and the 'Hanging Brush' permit the user to rest wet paint brushes providing the user with a clean working environment. The Overhang paint can's handle rests on the stopper permitting the user to rest their paint brush on the groove. The 'Hanging Brush' has notch which hooks onto paint can edges allowing the paint to drip into the can rather than down its side and the floor.
DIY Series: Maintenance
Plug Strippers, Coloured plug, Radiator Sticker
The maintenance series has been designed to simplify often overlooked tricky household tasks.
The Plug Strippers are designed to cut and strip the wires of a cable to the required lengths making the fiddly task of wiring a UK plug easier. The order the wires are stripped relates to the order in which they are attached to the plug. The strippers would consist of three blades 2 stripping blades and one cutting blade with the housing being compression moulded.
The Coloured plug is simple, by colouring the existing insulated pins with the according colours of the wires that would attach to them, assures the user they are wiring the plug correctly preventing the plug from being accidentally mixed up.
The Radiator sticker is thermochromic, meaning it reacts to a specified temperature; indicating to the user when to bleed their radiator. Air is a poor conductor of heat so when it builds up at the top of radiators it greatly reduces the heating systems efficiency increasing the amount of energy needed to heat a room. This means the bottom half of the radiator would be hot and the top half colder. By putting the sticker at the top of the radiator you are able to tell whether there is air trapped: When the heating system is on a red ring should appear showing that the system is working. When the system is on and the sticker remains completely yellow,then there may be air trapped.