the best company at NeoCon 2009

(above: portrait from MetropolisMag.com)

Stephanie Forsythe, along with Todd MacAllen and Robert Pasut, make up molo—a collaborative studio that approaches product design from an architect’s perspective. The outcomes are wonderful, multi-functional structures that can be interpretted for use as furniture, lighting, space dilineation, or custom installations. The molo aesthetic is strikingly unique yet versatile enough for a range of interior styles: residential, educational, corporate, or commercial.

(above: the very popular molo booth at NeoCon 2009)

Most people favor the deluxe permanent showrooms of to-the-trade-only manufacturers and their champaign and hors d’œuvre afternoon hours, but I have to say that the molo booth was my absolute favorite at NeoCon. They were really the freshest company at the event, and their products spoke most to what I think is the artistic vision, environmental outlook, and indie philosophy of today’s young designers.

Keep reading for the story on how molo came about, circumventing the traditional A+D route, and how their amazing designs were inspired by dollar store trinkets.

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An atmosphere of relaxed experimentation, and play, is apparent in Lazerian’s workshop - although Liam’s collaborators Richard and Jason are silently engrossed in their making, the place is festooned with prototypes and work in progress, and there is a sense of productivity not being a chore, more of a happy coincidence.

The guys at Lazerian: Richard, Jason and Liam

Making up some of Lazerian's handmade jewellery range

Some Lazerian jewellery in progress

Jason is busy cutting polypropylene rings for bangles by hand. A seemingly laborious process, but apparently yielding much better results than the same process tried with the CNC - down to the rough edges from milling, as compared to the smoothness of a clean scalpel cut.

Lazerian sell a great deal online, through their custom designed website.  About 70% of business comes from direct sales online and through selected outlets, and the rest from commissions. The day that I am there the team are busy preparing for 100% Design in London, featuring some of Richard’s paper constructions on a grand scale. Curiously enough, I first encountered Richard years ago by happening across his Flickr site, showcasing his quite unbelievable aptitude with paper. Hopkins tells me that there is a good community of artists and designers in Manchester (he used to work in much closer proximity with such others but felt it more productive to be a bit more isolated!). He has no desire for the pull to London, and is very keen to keep production local in Britain, hence the studio’s commitment to making as much in house as possible. It is admirable, and not an easy thing to achieve in isolation but something they clearly thrive on.

I was surprised by Lazerian - I think I expected them to be a bunch of tech-headed furniture makers, but what I found was an amicable bunch of makers concerned above all with physical experimentation. For Lazerian, the tools are a means to an end, their creative use of CNC coming out of completely separate, quite traditional design aims. Refreshing.

Firstly, apologies for my unannounced hiatus from blogging here, it is nice to be back!

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of paying a visit to Lazerian, Liam Hopkin’s studio workshop in Manchester specialising in beguiling forms for furniture, mobiles and jewellery. We covered them briefly back in November, and ever since I have been dying to go and take a closer look at their products. I was not disappointed.

The Lazerian logo resplendant on their T Shirts

It seems to me that everyone in Manchester either lives or works in an old mill, and Lazerian are no exception. I was greeted by a very upbeat Hopkins, easily recognisable sporting a two tone T shirt with Lazerian’s trademark English Pointer emblazoned across it. He explains that the Pointer replaced their previous, (I would say, slightly less edgy) mascot of a squirrel. The dog is the latest inspiration for the studio’s foray into angular ornament, a net being run off the plotter as I enter the office for turning the dog into a planar 3d paper model.

As we sit down for a cup of tea, Hopkins tells me about Lazerian’s overarching ethos: experimenting with materials, seeing what they are capable of, making the most of them both in the sense of their properties and in the sense of resourcefulness.

Lazerian's Mensa Coffee Table

My first destination as we enter their spacious workshop is to check out the CNC machine used to create pieces such as their Mensa tables. Why CNC?

“We wanted CNC from the start … We can get a lot more out of the material that way - the components we cut would be much more wasteful to make by hand.” Hopkins shows me a sheet with the negative forms left after CNC cutting, dozens of X shaped apertures crammed together on the ply. It occurs to me that this is not a big machine, and perhaps Lazerian’s fascination with repeated forms and pattern are as much a response to what production resources they have on hand as aesthetics. “The smaller forms force you to be more creative,” says Hopkins, “The CNC machine also allows us to keep production in house.”

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Digitally printed silks with collages of English roses, vintage stamps, detailed moths, and ink splots; DIY wall decorations of embossed flourishes; laser-cut and digitally embroidered leather upholstery. This is the work of Catherine Hammerton.

The ‘05 graduate from the Royal College of Art’s textile program was the recent recipient of an innovation grant from Central Saint Martins. (The other amazing art school in London.) With the award and in partnership with a top British manufacturer, Summer 2009 will see the launch of her digitally printed wallpapers.

I recently interviewed Catherine about her love of fabric and technology, her current work in mass-customization, and her thoughts on the future of the field of textiles.

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I’ve been writing a lot about digital textile printing, but you may be wondering where and how you can get your own designs printed. And I’m here to tell you. Spoonflower is a no-minimum, unlimited color digital printing start-up for custom, on-demand fabric. I interviewed company founder Stephen Fraser to tell you all about it.

So where did the name Spoonflower come from?

Spoonflower is the common name of an endangered wildflower native to North Carolina. The White arrow arum, or Spoonflower, grows along the edges of swamps and bogs. My wife Kim and I ran across the name when we were looking for plants that would survive in a rain garden we were building in the backyard of our house. When the idea came along to build a web site to serve the crafting community, Spoonflower just seemed to fit.

Where did this idea come from and how long did it take to actualize it?

Spoonflower was originally my wife’s idea. Kim has always been a crafty sort, but over the past few years she’s also become an avid sewist. A little over a year ago I was a marketing consultant helping Internet start-ups, and I knew nothing at all about textiles. One night Kim asked me if I had ever heard of a company that would let her print her own fabric. My immediate response was that there probably was a company like that, but I expected that she would need to order hundreds of yards at a minimum.

As a conceptual problem — Can an industrial production process be put at the service of an individual’s creativity? — her question about fabric rang a bell for me. I used to be the marketing guy for a company called Lulu.com that solved the same problem for people who wanted to publish a book. By marrying the Web with digital printing technology, Lulu made it possible for an individual to publish a single copy of a single book for less than $10.It turns out that you can also print fabric digitally. Putting that technology together with the Web seemed like such a good idea that I was able to convince my former boss, Gart Davis, to join me as my business partner shortly after he stepped down as Lulu’s president last year.

It took us about six weeks to put together a very rough beta site that went live around the beginning of June 2008. Based on buzz among craft bloggers, the number of people on the waiting list grew into the thousands. We ended up opening registration to one and all in October and at this point Spoonflower has around 20,000 registered users. We’re still working on getting all the features of the site in place, most importantly a marketplace for designs and a broader choice of fabrics for printing.
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Industrial Design candidate from University of Illinois Chicago, Wendy Uhlman was recently involved in the design of a new food co-op to open this March in Chicago. I was introduced to Wendy’s work at the Deceptive Design show, where her Allstool was on display. Last week I asked Wendy to talk about her project with the co-op for my January theme on lighting.

IC: Tell me about this co-op and how you found the opportunity to work with them.

WU: My professor Ted Burdett was working to help get a co-op started; it’s the Dill Pickle Food Co-op. The class was asked to focus on sustainable lighting and seating design. I’m excited that my lighting concepts were chosen by the board of the co-op for installation.

IC: How did you come up with these particular designs?

WU: When I visited the space, I saw all of these torn out ducts that were going to be disposed. Before I just settled on the ducts, I looked at recycling other materials. But in dealing with lighting, I didn’t want to risk using materials that were unstable. Flammability is an issue, as well as the liabilities of the co-op. So I decided on the ducts not only because of their durability and sustainability, but I thought using them would in some way retain the history of the building– it used to be a printing house.

IC: Is sustainability a big issue for you personally? 

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I first came across Bre Pettis‘ work when the hacker collective to which he belongs, NYCResistor got their hands on their own laser cutter and started getting very busy with it! Since then his name just kept popping up so I caught up with him via email to ask some pertinent questions about his recent project, Thingiverse, and the future of making in general..

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Design Lab Workshop is the solo work of multi-disciplinary designer Brian Peters. I met with Brian at his space in the Chicago Arts District.

IC: I like how your portfolio has product designs and art installations. What did you study in school?

BP: I recieved my bachelor’s degree in sculpture from Calvin College in Michigan. After that, I attended the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and recieved my Masters in Architecture. I currently work full time at a small residential architecture firm in Chicago, and Design Lab Workshop is the venue for my independent projects.

IC: Some of your projects seem like good candidates for mass production. Are you interested in having these products available for purchase?

BP: Yes. I designed some of my pieces, such as the Revolve Light, with consideration for how they could be produced efficienctly on a larger scale.  Currently each piece is unique; however, I am looking to create limited edition series.

(Brian’s light received second place in the Get Lit competition sponsored by Design Within Reach, Tree Studios.)

IC: I think your chair Red Weave would be almost impossible to mass produce. What made you decide to use the yarn with the cardboard?

BP: One of the limitations of cardboard is its uniform color and rigidity. So I started exploring how to manipulate the material’s surface. With the yarn, I’m using the corrugation of the cardboard to my advantage and designing a more graphic piece.

IC: Lots of your work is impressively large, have you worked in a smaller scale?

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Last month I met with Craighton Berman at the design consultancy gravitytank. After a quick tour of the offices, which included versatile spaces for brain storming, personal spaces with computers and a well equipped shop, we sat down in the kitchen and fueled the conversation with beer and birthday cake.

IC: To start off, can you tell us about your educational and design background?

CB: I went to Virginia Tech, started in Engineering and then discovered Industrial Design. Out of school I got a job in Chicago  designing backpacks, bags and luggage. My senior thesis was this modular mass-customizable bag concept– before Freitag released their F-cut, which is their mass-customization online cut-out. After a bit I wanted to do something more varied and get into consulting. So I took a job at Ignite, which is an interesting firm because they do consulting but also manufacture their own products. I worked on products for Starbucks, a pet product line, a huge line of products for Mead… but after a few years found myself becoming more interested in the strategy behind the products. I wanted to work on things at a conceptual level. And eventually came to gravitytank to do that kind of work. So now I’m working with teams of strategists, analysts, and researchers to help identify opportunities for innovation, define design strategies, and shape advanced concepts for our clients. I’ve worked on projects ranging from consumer electronics to retail design and along the way I’ve had the opportunity to develop the use of storyboarding and scenarios in our work.

( Not only does gravitytank serve birthday cake, they also let their designers work on independent projects at the studio.)

above: Pinch, ceramic salt cellar and pepper shaker set for tabletop use.

IC: Is there any theme or concept that drives your personal work?

CB: I’m very drawn to designs involving user-interaction. Pinch, my salt and pepper shaker, came from the way my wife and I use salt while cooking; we pinch Kosher salt from a bowl and sprinkle it over our food to season it. And I thought, how can I make a product that brings that action, that function, to the table. With my Coil lamp, which was in the Deceptive Design show, it was driven by this idea of making a lamp out of just it’s cord. I started with fabric covered cord and soaking it in resin. But a lot of factors were keeping that from happening, so I moved on to the plexiglass frame. And I started to get excited, because the user can create their own lamp using my frame and their own cord.

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In a previous post we were lucky enough to get Frank Piller to tell us how he got into mass customization and what developments he as seen during his time researching the subject. In this post Frank reveals insights into where mass customization it’s advantages and drawbacks.

What are the most common shared factors in mass customization business models that fail? Is there one thing you would recommend a start up to avoid?

I believe many mass customization start-ups fail for the same reasons other start-ups fail: Lack of financing, inexperienced management, or just bad luck. What I can recommend for mass customization start-ups is, first of all, really decide where your system provides customer value. This may sound simple, but I saw too many start-ups that were build on the promise “when we customize, they will come”. Think of BookTailor, a site where users could customize travel guide books. Sounds like a great idea, but when you have to become your own editor of a guide book, you loose the most important value of a good travel guide: To think of the unexpected, to surprise, and to provide input in a situation not planned (say, an entire week of rain). BookTailor considered customization as a value per se. But this is not true. Customization is just the vehicle for customer value, but not its origin.

A second advice is to see whether your mass customization business is scalable once success will come. Often, mass customization is based on large work shops or sample room operations. But when you want to succeed with mass customization, you have to have stable processes for each customer order.

How important do you think social networking and the sharing of ideas/designs are? And is the building of an online community and the implicit exchange of social capital factored into many mass customization business models?

This is a rather new development, and I do not know too many communities or social networks that support a mass customization business (often, Threadless is named as an example, but Threadless explicitly is NOT mass customization, but a mass production model based on customer co-creation in the design stage.)

But we just started a 5 Million Euro research project called SERVIVE, funded by the European Commission, where our mission is to scale-up mass customization in the European fashion industry. One of the measures to do so could be communities supporting the configuration process. But you have to ask me again in three years if we succeeded …

The use of online ‘configurator’ software seems to currently be the most common format for mass customization, what do you see as the benefits and drawbacks of this model and how do you see this evolving in the future?

Yes, that’s correct. It was the broader development of online configurators that made mass customization happens in a larger scale. Have a look at our web-site for the scale and scope of configurators today.

Here, need-based configuration often is better. This means that users have to tell something about her preferences, requirements, or expected outcomes. This input then is transferred by an algorithm into a product configuration. There is a great paper by three scholars that compared the use of a parameter versus need-based configurator for Dell (asking people what graphic card they want versus asking people what games they play). In this paper, the authors clearly find that most users prefer the need-based solution, mimicking the behavior of a good sales person (T. Randall, C. Terwiesch, and K. Ulrich, User design of customized products. Marketing Science, Marketing Science, 26 (2007) 2 (March-April): 268-280) (here is a link to a previous publication). Here, I believe, industry has to invest much more in developing better configuration systems that minimize “mass confusion”.

Are there alternatives to mass customization?

Absolutely! I recently see better matching-systems for standard products as a strong alternative to mass customization. Within an assortment (of pre-fabricated products), customer specific choices/options are recommended. Consider My Virtual Model, a matching service for fashion retailers and the appliance industry. MVM enables consumers, either on its own site or on the sites of its clients, to build themselves in a virtual model (an avatar), by selecting different body types, hair styles, face characteristics, etc. Consumers also type in their basic measurements so that the virtual model represents their body measurement. In addition, customers can specify what kind of “fit” they prefer (loose, comfort, tight, etc.) so that the recommendations provided do not only fit the customer in terms of sizes and appearance, but also in terms of how they do feel inside the garment.

When MVM started offering virtual avatars in 1999, they looked more like a curious oddity. But now their avatars are used by more than 12 millions individual users. Companies such as Adidas, Best Buy, Levis, Sears and H&M are using these virtual models to generate business and stronger ties to their customers, lured by the increase in such metrics as average order value and conversion.

Any other example of such a matching service?

Sure. A great example is Zafu.com. Finding the right size of a pair of jeans is a challenge for many women. The answer of mass customization is taking a customer’s measurements and making a custom pair of jeans for her. Zafu offers a different approach. From the customer perspective, the experience starts similarly. Zafu asks women shoppers eleven questions about how they prefer jeans to sit on their hips or waist to create a body profile. In addition, they ask for some basic body measurements.

But instead of using this information to create a custom cut, they match it with a large database of proprietary fitting information about the jeans of more than 30 major brands. This database contains hundreds of styles, from broadly marketed Gap to pricey designer labels. The consumer then gets a list of ranked results, linked with the brand’s website to purchase.

But both models supplement each other: For most consumers, a better matching service like MVM or Zafu will provide sufficient value. For others, however, the ultimate product still will be the truly custom jean––providing not only perfect fit, but also the hedonistic satisfaction connected with a custom product. Zafu is well positioned to profit from this trend. The company is owned by Archtetype, a major enabler of true mass customization for the clothing industry. Thus, they easily can refer a customer finding no fitting piece in Zafu’s database of the existing assortment of standard products to the custom clothing offerings.

I predict that we will see many more examples of these matching services as they offer companies to profit better from what they already have: vast assortments of existing goods. The result may be a new understanding of mass customization, beyond its roots in on-demand manufacturing and product design. In the end, it is the customer who drives the business. And customers are not differentiating between personalized, customized, or standardized offerings. I believe that we will need a broader understanding of mass customization. And I am excited to work on this challenge in the coming years.

Thanks again to Frank for sharing his views on mass customization, for more check out his configurator database and his Mass Customization, Customer Co-Creation & Open Innovation.