Ever wonder how some of the stuff we use every day came to be?
I think about it sometimes when I’m at the stove with my favorite sauté pan, with its perfect trifecta of size, weight and performance. Or when I’m struggling with the badly designed zippers on my otherwise-swanky new tote bag.
Good design doesn’t just come out of thin air. From the idea to the finished product, it can be a long road. One mind might have cooked up the product idea, but there’s usually a slew of others who have a say in getting it to your store.
At the beginning, every clever gadget and life-simplifying tool had an industrial designer who spent hours thinking about the components that make it so clever or life-simplifying.
I talked to two of them, both winners of multiple design awards: Dan Harden of Whipsaw, a San Francisco-based firm that’s designed all kinds of products, from water filters and home saunas to the little tags you stick on things you don’t want to lose. And Scott Henderson, an industrial designer whose eponymous firm in Brooklyn, New York, designs products for brands you’ve probably got in the kitchen, nursery and bathroom.
‘Moby’ spout cover for babies and tots
If you have toddlers, you may have a little blue rubber whale, a Moby, on your bathtub spout. Henderson designed it for Skip Hop in 2008.
Moby, made of a rubbery latex-free material called TPE, fits over the spout to protect kiddos from bumping into or touching the warm spout while they’re in the bath. Its tail can function as a hook, and the tub’s water spout can be right where a whale’s blowhole would be. When Henderson is asked about his design favorites, Moby tops the list.
“I think it was a first-of-its-kind product that combined problem-solving innovation with an intrinsic soul and an iconic personality,” he says.
Pixar included a Moby-like spout cover, Drips the Whale, in “Toy Story Toons.”
Working with boldface names in the kitchen
Your OXO dustpan, T-Fal measuring spoons, Sunbeam Mixmaster and Chantal kettle also came from the imagination of Henderson and his team.
If a product makes you smile, he says, it becomes easier to use. How do you get a blender or a spoon to make you smile?
“One approach I like is to design the object around one big idea, instead of 10 small ones. When someone can easily understand the purpose and the way to use a tool, that’s a happy feeling," he says.
“The experience is as much sensed as it is seen. The product makes them feel smart, and when they feel smart, they smile.”
A new kind of face shield for the pandemic
During COVID's disruption of the supply chain, many designers started 3-D printing personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals and essential workers.
After brainstorming ideas with product development company ZVerse, Henderson and his crew had an idea: How about a face shield that attached at the neck instead of the top of the head — a boon for food service workers, dentists and others? The ZShield was born. It also became popular for public appearances by celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt and Michelle Obama.
The shield was produced in North Carolina, instead of overseas. “We bypassed the supply chain backlog," Henderson said.
Creating something useful is ‘a sublime experience’
Henderson says the creative breakthrough for a new product idea is the most gratifying part. "It's a dopamine explosion.”
And when millions of people start buying it? Says Whipsaw’s Harden: “It’s awesome to see your design out in the real world succeeding and making people happy. It starts with a thought that makes your heart jump. Followed by a sketch, then a computer rendering, then a model. Seeing a concept come to life like that’s a sublime experience.”
Harden’s design oeuvre includes the FreeSip, a collaborative product with water bottle maker Owala, part of Trove Brands. The product made TIME magazine’s Best Inventions list in 2023, as well as The New York Times’ list of best water bottles in 2024.
Whipsaw also worked with fitness company Tonal on a smart home gym that has fans like Serena Williams and Lebron James. Instead of a bulky set of iron, the Tonal system is wall-mounted, with digital weights powered by electromagnets, and an interactive screen for virtual training lessons.
Then there’s the Tile tracker, which attaches to things like wallets, phones, bikes, carry bags and sports gear. Whipsaw worked with Life360 on refining the design for easy attachment, and came up with fun colors to appeal to new tech adopters and families.
“Design is incredibly fun to do, but there are challenges,” Harden says. “Keeping a vision alive for the duration of a project is hard, since there are many opportunities for it to get sidetracked by things like cost, product requirements and making sure the concept fits the brand.
“People think a designer has the proverbial ‘big idea in the shower’ and snap, it’s done. It’s way more involved than that.”
Rethinking the piano
Also an accomplished artist and musician, Harden says his design “aha!” moment came while listening to classical music on a long flight. He got thinking about how instruments like the harp, violin and trumpet were beautiful to look at as well as listen to. “What each of those instruments looks like greatly elevates the listener’s musical experience.”
But then there’s the piano. “It’s a big black box held up with three chunky legs, with a sound-reflecting lid that’s kind of a functional afterthought,” he said. Further, a pianist is watched in profile, so you miss much of the emotion on their face.
So he started sketching out a sleek, smaller, front-facing piano that showed off its strings and mechanism to the audience within an evocative, wing-like silhouette.
“By the time I landed several hours later, it was conceptually worked out, and that soon became the Ravenchord piano," he says.
There's more where that came from
If these designers could redesign anything next, what would it be?
Henderson would love to make city water towers more attractive; the standard silo with legs doesn’t do anything for the look of the building it sits on, he says. He’s also bothered by the unsightly orange construction barriers that beleaguer cityscapes, and sees those as ripe for redesign.
Harden thinks the common walking cane could use a rethink. “Or really any product that serves our aging population, I’d like to design," he said.
“Creativity is the most precious of human traits, and there’s no better life pursuit than to study, practice and actualize one’s creative expression.”
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New York-based writer Kim Cook covers design and decor topics regularly for The AP. Follow her on Instagram at @kimcookhome.
For more AP Lifestyles stories, go to https://apnews.com/lifestyle
Kim Cook, The Associated Press
