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‘A beautiful juxtaposition’: how a radio designer found inspiration in beer barrels


Revo’s Ampersand SuperConnect is housed in the same oak as Innis & Gunn’s barrels.






Revo’s Ampersand SuperConnect is housed in the same oak as Innis & Gunn’s barrels.
Photograph: David N Anderson

“The cabinet begs to be touched, such is the personality of the oak,” says David Baxter, CEO and co-founder of Revo, a radio manufacturer headquartered in the small Scottish market town of Lanark. Revo has reconstructed its award-winning, flagship product, the SuperConnect – a smart, wifi-connected radio, and the first of its kind to feature Spotify’s new Connect feature – as part of a collaboration with fellow Scottish artisanal brand, beer maker Innis & Gunn.

“The clean, light oak finish contrasts beautifully with black anodised aluminium, and the solid wood cabinet enhances the sound by adding increased warmth and tone,” continues Baxter.

It’s all part of Project Ampersand, a forward-thinking new series of collaborations between Innis & Gunn and fellow Scottish artisanal creatives. It challenges four like-minded brands to use the Innis & Gunn Original barrel-aged beer as inspiration for creating unique products within their own expertise.

Revo’s contribution, the Ampersand SuperConnect, is a signature Revo audio system but built using the oak staves used in the Original Innis & Gunn barrels which are then handcrafted into solid hardwood cabinets.

“The rawness of the crafted hardwood outer also works beautifully in juxtaposition to the clean, minimal Revo aesthetic,” adds Innis & Gunn’s founder and master brewer Dougal Sharp. “It’s a lovely combination of the two brands.”

So how do you go about creating such beautifully crafted pieces? Creating a product as complicated as a SuperConnect would be pretty demanding, let alone attempting to do it using beer barrels.

“From a concept point of view,” Baxter explains, “we quickly decided that if possible we wanted to build cabinets using oak staves – the narrow planks of bevelled wood used in the construction of barrels. We experimented with leaving the oak staves relatively rustic and raw, and we tried taking the wood down to a smooth finish, before settling on a hybrid of the two: a clean finish that still exhibits some of the original barrel’s character, unvarnished and real.”

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‘The clean, light oak finish contrasts beautifully with black anodised aluminium,’ says Revo’s David Baxter. Photograph: David N Anderson

Sharp describes Revo as offering an interesting and accessible combination of high-end quality matched with a timeless, classic aesthetic. “The mid-century look is very ‘now’ – however this is the aesthetic that Revo’s founder David has always admired and therefore the pieces in the range are a true reflection of his combined passions of audio and classic design,” he says.

Since its release in 2013, the SuperConnect has garnered a string of five-star reviews, a Red Dot product design award, the Radio of the Year title in Scandinavia and a coveted What Hi-Fi? award. Does its new Ampersand version stand up to the same sound quality?

“The idea was that the Ampersand SuperConnect would be the first, and almost certainly only, example of SuperConnect to be made from solid wood, rather than an MDF and real wood veneer mix – which is the norm,” Baxter explains. “It’s very difficult to mass-produce products using solid wood, because each plank is so different – from variations in colour and grain, to imperfections and challenges with warping.

“The benefit of a solid oak cabinet would be that as well as the product sounding richer, it would have an authenticity and tactility that would make each example very special.”

Project Ampersand certainly shows that Scotland, despite its small population, has a creativity and design expertise to match any nation in the world. So, why is it so important for Scottish creatives to support each other?

“Much like craft beer – which is awash with collaborations between brewers and breweries – the design community thrives when it works together,” Sharp says. “Many voices working together in unison shout louder and we believe it’s the same for Scottish brands, whether the canvas is clothes, watches, chocolate, art, technology or in our case beer, working together to forge new ideas and interpretations is what fuels progress.”

“Being from a small country and operating in what is a provincial market, I definitely think that Scottish brands have to shout a little louder to be heard over all the noise,” agrees Baxter. “We need to show that we’re different, we need to be innovative, we need to exhibit qualities that make us hard to ignore – we need to punch above our weight, and collaborations help us do that.”

With a product as well crafted and imperious sounding as the Ampersand SuperConnect, it definitely feels as if both Revo and Innis & Gunn have managed to get their voices heard over the crowd.

For more information on Project Ampersand, visit innisandgunn.com/ampersand



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