Inventology

A businessman struggles with his luggage at an airport and pioneers the wheeled suitcase. An engineer watches people using walkie-talkies and dreams up the mobile phone. A printer is frustrated by his unpredictable inks and creates the Pantone colour system.

Why were these particular people able to identify a problem, and how did they discover the solutions that everyone else missed? Where exactly did their great ideas come from, and how did they go about making them a reality?

In pursuit of answers, Pagan Kennedy has spent her career examining the creative process, interviewing inventors and engineers, scientists, psychologists and economists in a bid to understand how we create. In Inventology Kennedy collects their wisdom and explores a series of landmark inventions, taking us through the processes by which we have come to dream up new products and technologies, and conceived solutions to ‘impossible’ problems.