Applications are open for this year's RDI Summer School, and anyone with between 3 and 15 years' professional design experience can apply. It runs from Thursday 30 August to Sunday 2 September, in a country house in the Cotswolds, and because it's subsidised, only costs £100 per person. The deadline for applications is 29 June. UPDATE - The deadline has been extended by a week to Friday 6 July.

The RDI are the Royal Designers for Industry, a gang of the brightest and best from the worlds of design, architecture and engineering. They include Jonathon Ive, Derek Birdsall, Peter Blake, Thomas Heatherwick, Alan Kitching, Marc Newson and Mary Quant amongst their number, as well as a host of others.

It's tricky to describe exactly what goes on at the summer school - it changes every year. And it's not really a school at all. It's a chance to free up your thinking. To remind yourself of why you do what you do.

For some people, it can be the catalyst that encourages them to rethink what they're doing with their lives. For others it's just an invaluable opportunity to meet an incredible range of hugely talented creative contemporaries.

You can find out more at the RSA website, and can check out some of Alistair's photos from last year's school here.

We highly recommend it. Apply now.