By Vicki Matranga, Design Programs Coordinator
Learn how to develop and launch the right products for the right customer—with the right methods! Be sure to attend some of the free executive-level educational sessions at the Innovation Theater. These programs will renew your perspective as you walk the Show and will inspire, inform and improve your business.
The four days of the 2015 International Home + Housewares Show will be packed with events and educational sessions. To help you plan your valuable time at the Show, we preview the 21 presentations that will take place in the Innovation Theater in the Lakeside Center. Don’t miss the chance to meet the speakers in person and the opportunity to ask questions relevant to your work. All programs are audio-recorded and will be available on www.housewares.org after the Show.
Growing U.S. Manufacturing By Design
Saturday, March 7 12:30— 1:20 p.m.
Innovation Theater, Lakeside Center, Room E350
Today we are speaking Pam Daniels, a dynamic young Chicago entrepreneur. Pam is a founding partner of DesignHouse Inc., an organization dedicated to growing local manufacturing through design. She is happiest when she is making something, and loves to do what’s never been done. Previously Pam led large-scale innovation at IDEO and Starcom MediaVest Group. She is pursuing a Masters in Product Design & Development at Northwestern University, where she also serves as a mentor in the Design for America (DFA). DFA is an award-winning nationwide network of interdisciplinary student teams and community members using design to create local and social impact. DFA students apply human-centered design to local and social challenges in education, health, economy and environment. Founded at Northwestern University in 2009, DFA now has studios all over the country within universities such as Stanford, MIT, UCLA, University of California at Berkeley, Yale. When she’s not designing something, you might find Pam laughing with her improv troupe, playing in Lake Michigan or hanging out with her family, sometimes all at once.
Pam, what is the most exciting or rewarding part of your job? What inspires your passion in your work?
I find the design process thrilling. To be able to go from an idea to a physical object that can be seen, touched, and experienced is a joyful experience for me, every time. I feel incredibly lucky to be part of the extraordinary community of makers and designers in Chicago and to be able to partner with experienced local manufacturers to get products fabricated. There is so much capability here, and the barriers to bringing new products to market have never been lower.
In the past few years, what has changed most in your business? How has your company met these challenges in the way you do your work?
The growth in prototyping capabilities has been exponential. Laser cutters and 3D printers have been game-changers for designers. Add to that the emergence of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, which enable an early dialogue directly with consumers, and it’s never been easier to go from concept to market.
The other factor which has had a big impact for us is the growth of co-working spaces for makers, like Tech Shop in the Bay Area and Catalyze Chicago here in the Windy City. We are based at Catalyze Chicago, a robust community in which members can share information on everything from materials selection to manufacturing capabilities and general moral support. Previously this type of strength-in-numbers was only available inside established corporations. Now it’s possible to stay lean and agile and have the advantages of a small, independent business without the isolation and resulting need to learn everything the hard way.
Why did you choose to speak at the International Home + Housewares Show?
I was delighted to be invited to speak at the International Home + Housewares Show. I’ve attended for the past several years, but my love affair with housewares goes much further back than that. When I was a sophomore in college, I fell in love with a Dieter Rams-designed Braun Citromatic juicer during a spring break trip to California. I loved it so much I bought one with my work-study money and kept it in my dorm room in Boston. So needless to say, my affection for well-designed household goods runs deep. It’s an honor to be speaking here as a designer.
Tell us what you will be speaking about and how and this topic is important for Show audiences.
What if the farm-to-table concept were applied to design & manufacturing? That question drove the creation of DesignHouse, a collective of Chicago-based designers working to enhance the capacity of the manufacturing sector by developing products suited for local fabrication. I’ll share lessons learned and how designers, manufacturers & consumers benefit through closer collaboration.
When I walked through the Housewares Show last year, I was struck by how many of the objects on display seemed to have fallen straight out of CAD and onto the shelf. There was too little life in the designs. It felt like the materials and the processes used to create the objects were totally subservient to the whims of the computer-facing creator. They weren’t celebrated. I am excited by our inverted approach, which is very hands-on and springs from the materials themselves. It feels more respectful to me to get to know a material, what it takes to fabricate it into a consumer good, and to use the processes to effect, as we did with the REVEAL photo frame. It’s a simple metal object which distills the complexity of a standard photo frame to its essence, and we never would have gotten there by starting in CAD.
The REVEAL photo frame was conceived in a very hands-on way with paper and scissors, which are great analogous materials for sheet metal. We only went into CAD (Computer Aided Design) once we had a working, to-scale prototype in paper, and our aim was to create a DXF (Drawing Exchange Format) file so we could water jet it in metal. We spent no time with renderings, working only in the physical world, and our little product took shape in just one week. We would never have gotten to this end result without the farm-to-table approach of starting with a particular material and identified production partner with the capabilities to stamp and bend metal. The look of the object is totally informed by this, and my hope is that more people will walk away from the screen and get back to getting their hands on materials. I think more interesting products will result from this design shift.
This is your first time presenting at our Theater. What are you looking forward to most from speaking at the Innovation Theater?
I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with a wide range of innovators and learning from them as well as the participants.
What do you see as consumers’ biggest concerns regarding housewares products?
I observe people wanting a carefully curated collection of practical but elegant objects. I see the trend toward fewer, better objects. This is in part driven by sustainability concerns, and it’s also shaped by the trends toward a more simple life and smaller living spaces. The tiny house movement encapsulates this desire.
Consumers across all price points are also less willing to put up with inferior products. Carrying around smartphones in our pockets has made us expect our object to interact with us, to meet our needs, and anything less feels like disrespect. Good design is no longer reserved for the well-heeled and savvy—it’s in everything from potato peelers to better Kleenex boxes.
What are some of today’s trends or issues that new product development professionals and/or retailers face in the housewares market?
I think the challenge is and remains how to tap into what people want before they know they want it. Truly human-centered design is sabotaged by the corporate tendency to make incremental improvements to existing products versus looking at something with totally fresh eyes. And it is further impeded by the methods typically used to get at consumer desires (asking people what they want vs. observing them in context). The opportunities for product developers who can break out of these conventions are limitless.
Thank you, Pam, for sketching out your approach to designing consumer projects and for explaining the aims of DesignHouse, an innovative new direction for Chicago’s designers and manufacturers. Congratulations on the Kickstarter success of the Reveal photo frame.
We look forward to hearing the latest on your projects on the opening day of the Show, Saturday, March 7 at 12:30 p.m.
To learn more about DesignHouse and its organizers, contact:
Pam Daniels
Founding Partner
DesignHouse, Inc.
650 W Lake St. Suite 110
Chicago, IL 60661