How the folding plug looks in action. The designer will launch the device this year.Inventor Min-Kyu Choi with his award-winning Folding Plug.Innovative: The plug is designed to fold down to a thickness of just 1cm for storage, left, but can be opened up again quickly when needed
It began as just one of those niggling everyday frustrations.
But a design student's determination to end the 64-year reign of the unwieldy three-pin electrical plug has won him an international design award - and looks set to make him his fortune.
Min-Kyu Choi, 29, had bought the world's thinnest laptop, advertised as being slim enough to fit in an envelope.
However, the marketing neglected to account for the bulky three-pin plug that has been tethered to almost every British electrical item since 1946.
When the nuisance plug scratched his shiny new computer, Mr Choi, who graduated from his MA design course last year, decided that enough was enough, and set about devising a slimline folding alternative.
The 1cm thick result (the standard version is 4.5cm) has now beaten rivals from around the world, including the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen's last collection, to win the Brit Insurance design of the year award.
The student, from Bayswater, West London, said: 'I carried the laptop with me to university but when I took it out I was disappointed to find the plug had scratched the computer.
'I thought it would be a good idea to create a plug that could be folded flat so the pins would not cause any damage and also to make it as thin as the laptop itself.'
Now a student at London's Royal College of Art, Mr Choi's design could 'make a difference to everyone's life', according to the chairman of the judging panel, artist Antony Gormley.
Just as the inventor of 'cat's eyes' for the road, Percy Shaw, became a multi-millionaire on the back of his idea, Mr Choi is also likely to win his own riches.
Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum, which organises the awards, said: 'It works, it looks good and I'm sure it will make him a wealthy man if it is marketed right.'
In 1946, it was decided to standardise the three-pin plug for all sockets and appliances. However, it has proved a bulky inconvenience in the modern world.
Despite TVs going flat, videos being junked for the slimline DVD and record players being replaced by MP3 devices, the plug remained virtually unchanged for more than half a century.
