So the New York design week hit town again on what was a gorgeous Spring weekend (which kept the crowds at the ICFF manageable). Many other sites will be giving comprehensive overviews so I thought I’d just mention a couple of things which stood out for me.
First up was the Beautiful hand-crafted tea canisters from Kaikado. The simplicity and quality of craftsmanship of these were superb. I wasn’t aware of the company before but here’s a link to their website.
Next, I know it’s not new – in fact in won a Red Dot award in 2011, but this was the first time I’d seen the X-Plus table by Shi Xiaioxi in person and it’s a lot more poetic and approachable than the photo’s I’d previously seen would have led me to believe. Great work for a young designer.
Finally, on the subject of young designers, the collaboration between Alessi and Cranbrook students which is on show at the Alessi showroom on Greene Street was very interesting. To me the work by Adam Shirley was a standout.
So we just learned that unfortunately we didn’t win the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award this year. The award for Product Design went to Scott Wilson of Minimal – Congratulations to him and the team there and all the other winners.
In the taxi on the way to JFK early yesterday morning ready to go for a meeting in Buffalo I looked over and saw the Space Shuttle Enterprise sitting on the tarmac on top of a 747. Unfortunately I was too slow to whip out my iphone and I didn’t get a decent shot on the way back either so I had to purloin this photo by Kate Hinds from the Transportation Nation website.
I recently received an email from Kristina Funck, a talented designer based in Oregon, which caught my eye. Her and her husband, Matthew, decided to go on a 2 month road trip across America visiting Design studios to try to find an inspirational place to work. They’ve been documenting their travels on a website www.road-to-work.com which makes for an entertaining and inspiring read (as well as sporting some great photography). I was scheduled to meet with Kristina later this week when they hit New York and I was very much looking forward to meeting them in person and discussing the trip. Sadly, for me but not Kristina, they never made it this far having been snapped up for a position in Chicago (not sure by who).
This is such a great story of a positive, can-do attitude and I encourage you to check out their site.
After yesterday’s rather gloomy post about inventors/entrepreneurs and the struggle to launch a new product I thought I should share a story of success (and a lot of perseverance).
Way back in 1999 Prime Studio was contacted by an inventor called Philip Eu who had an idea for a new cat feeder. Philip’s own cats led to his epiphany and design idea. I’ll let Philip describe it himself….
“In 1999 I had a ‘day’ job with long and irregular working hours, and two cherished cats, Mikey and Sparky that no matter what time I got home from work, had eaten their dinner and were happy to see me. Life was good. Cats were happy, so I was happy. Then came the news, that Mikey had life threatening health issues, and I got strict Veterinarian instructions to only feed him a special medicated diet for the rest of his life. His special diet could not be shared with his brother Sparky. I could no longer leave food out, if I was going to be working late, and most nights I had to work late. After a few months of twice daily supervised meals, and with the help of friends and family for the night time feeding, I thought that there had to be a better way! I searched everywhere only to discover that I was already using the only solution available: supervised or separated feedings. So one day, while I was waiting yet again for a delayed flight back home, I sketched out some ideas, and by the time I landed, I had a working drawing. I now knew what our babies at home needed; now I just needed to figure out how to make the thing work.”
Occasionally I get an email from a guy called Jack Daniels (I’m sure he’s heard all the quips) who runs a company called Eastbridge Engineering in Boston. I’ve never met Jack or dealt with his company but I’ll forgive the unsolicited emails because in a world of schmoozers and hype Jack tells it how it is – no BS.
His latest email was about misguided and un-informed entrepreneurs and marketeers who contact his company regarding new projects (which of course they all believe are the next BIG THING). Running a design consultancy for over 14 years now I’ve met my fair share of these people and even worked with a few of them (more about that in a future post). It seems like Jack got fed up with spending time discussing their ideas and concepts ultimately to walk away because ultimately the project was doomed to fail. So he put together a 10 point checklist to ‘pre-qualify’ potential clients and even he admits it’s brutal. I’ve reproduced the checklist below after the jump (I’m sure Jack won’t mind – after all this is free PR). If a potential client doesn’t get a passing grade then the conversation goes no further – tough love indeed. I encourage you to read the article in full to see his reasoning. Read more…
