James Dyson never cared much what things are supposed to look like. A trained artist and architect, he turned to engineering while struggling with a wheelbarrow stuck in the mud. This could be better, he thought. He replaced its wheels with a ball and dubbed the playful-looking tool the ballbarrow. His career began in earnest when he passed a local timber yard and stopped to admire its giant cyclone as it pulled sawdust from the air. Fifteen years and more than 5,000 prototypes later, he created a vacuum cleaner with cyclone technology rather than unreliable suction. The machine won consumers with its performance, and wowed the design community with its unusual look.
