A look at Duluth Trading Co., Part 2: Innovative products whether built or sourced, gender recognition, and good testing

In the years since being founded, Duluth Trading Co. has continued to release irreverent and innovative products that workers have a need for. DTC looks at simple but overlooked ergonomic needs, like the fact that when you're building, installing or fixing something you often need to crouch down or brace one leg up on something, which automatically tightens your pants in the crotch. In an effort to provide "Crouch without the ouch" and "man room," they released a line of jeans with a hidden crotch gusset. The not-so-subtle name: Ballroom Jeans.

DTC also recognized that there's a huge and largely unaddressed market of women doing manual labor, farming and fix-it work, hence their line of women's clothes and a dedicated area on their website called "Real Women" featuring a test panel, true stories and product testimonials. They've refused to use photographs of female models and instead use only actual working women who use Duluth's stuff.

In addition to the stuff they manufacture, I like the variety of unusual but useful gear they seek out and distribute, like wire benders for repurposing coat hangers, a dental tools kit filled with a variety of picks and tweezers (that I'll shortly be ordering to clean old grease out of machine gears), and military-developed "X-Treme" silicone-based repair tape that's stretchable, watertight, and acid- and melt-resistant.

Lastly, I like that heavy product testing is a big part of Duluth's philosophy, and in addition to soliciting customer input they regularly work with Habitat for Humanity, building houses while putting their gear to the test.

Next I'll take a look at their "killer app" material.

A look at Duluth Trading Co., Part 1: The origin story, and how hiding an ass-crack led to success

A lot of tool catalogs cross my desk, and there's none I enjoy reading more than that of the Duluth Trading Co., a Wisconsin-based work-gear company that epitomizes the notion of "Yankee ingenuity." DTC started in 1989 with two tradesman brothers noticing a common jobsite phenomenon: Workers hauling empty 5-gallon buckets, of the sort that paint and joint compound comes in, to haul tools. Workers would "hack" these buckets to conform to their hauling needs, kitting them out with wire and bungee cord to hold a variety of tools.

Soon the brothers had developed the Bucket Boss, a canvas tool organizer that fit a standard 5-gallon bucket.

Shortly thereafter they released an eight-page catalog of tool storage and organizing products they'd developed, and by 1991 they turned a refurbished dredging barge on Lake Superior into their floating headquarters.

In 2002 Duluth developed their breakout hit, a simple innovation that essentially added three inches to the back of a T-shirt. Their Longtail Twas advertised as "the cure for Plumber's Butt:"

Now guys who bend over when they work have new respectability with clients and no longer frighten unsuspecting passersby.

The pop-up ass-crack was a prevalent problem that other companies perhaps thought too scatological to address, but Duluth took it on and was rewarded.

Nine years later Duluth has expanded into women's gear, opened a 140,000 square foot distribution center, and developed a line of innovative products we'll look at next.

Calendar Boys :: The Men of Smart Design

Happy Monday! We have a special treat to help you jumpstart your week. Even with the arctic temperatures outside, this exclusive download guarantees to heat things up. Smart Design took some time at the end of 2010 to produce a calendar featuring their hot designers and even hotter designs. Thankfully, these pictures are too good not to be shared, and we got a chance to chat with the ladies of Smart to get the scoop. Clear some space on your wall and check out Mr. January...you can thank us (and Smart) later! Download the 10x10inch calendar here!

C77: Was this project initially intended to be a calendar?

This project was initially intended to be a calendar. But, intended is a broad word. It was more of a fun fantasy with the slight possibility of being realized. Once we got about four pictures though, we knew we were on a roll to reality.

Are all the featured products from Smart Design's work in 2010?

We're not sure if a calendar is going to be a yearly or an every 32 year thing yet. So far, it's been the latter. Since this is the first Men of Smart calendar, we thought it would be okay to use any of the products designed by us in the last 32 years.

Where are the ladies of Smart Design?

Even though this is highlighting the Men of Smart, the women of Smart are the ones who made it happen. We decided to focus on the men because 1) we thought there are enough calendars with women out there and 2) we thought it would be funnier. So, we took 12 ridiculously entertaining breaks in the middle of our work days to "convince" the men that duct taping spoons to their head really was a good idea.

"Suits That Transport": Mobility meets fashion in BMW future

Students of automotive design and fashion at the European Institute of Design in Barcelona have joined forces to explore the futures of urban mobility, in collaboration with Iniciativa BMW. "Suits That Transport"—translated a little cagily from the Spanish "El traje que te transporta"— is the name given to an exhibition of the students final outcomes currently on public display on the Rambla Catalunya in central Barcelona.

The concepts on offer are imaginative to say the least. "Comme des Voitures" (above) supposes a mobile urbanite zipping through the city streets on boots soled with large ball-bearings whilst being bombarded with ambient and real time information on the intelligent visor. Similarly "City-Sking" offers up the idea of skis made for urban terrain—and a funky space-suit to match. Yet more blue-sky is the mysterious "Flying suit" (below)—what this inflatable-looking garment is intended to do we can only imagine. Oh and you heard it here first—black and white will be the new florescent hi-vis.

Smart-arse jibes aside—and credit where credit is due—we've got to give it to the participants for some highly creative concepts and some modelling of the highest order. Its great to see, as always, some imaginative energy being invested in alternative mobility solutions—even if they can verge on the Jetsonian on occasion.

(Via Trecool/Barcelona Daily Photo/Monkee)

NAIAS 2011 :: Q+A Adrian Van Hooydonk, BMW Design

This is the final entry of a series of Q+As contributor Tamara Warren conducted with designers from the NAIAS 2011 show.

Adrian Van Hooydonk is head of BMW Design Group. He was responsible for the new 6-Series Cabriolet, the 1-Series M Coupe and the MINI Paceman concept on display at the North American International Auto Show. Hooydonk speaks to the future of design, which he says will include lightweight materials, sustainable materials and well-designed user interfaces.

C77: Is it more difficult to work with lighter-weight materials?

Adrian Van Hooydonk: Actually, no we find new materials very inspiring. Carbon fiber is a material that allows you to do any shape you would like. If you look at racing cars, they have very complex shapes, so it's possible with carbon fiber. In that sense, there was no restraint. The only thing with carbon fiber is that it's lighter than steel. To get the same stiffness you need a cross section that is bigger than on a steel beam. It's more an engineering problem than a design problem. For us in design, it was not that difficult.

It opened up new possibilities then?

Yes, it did. But we're used to working with different materials. For example on the 6-series if you look at the exterior we were working with aluminum, steel, and plastic all in the same body shape. When you work with three different materials in one car that is more of a challenge for a designer. Because each of these materials has different properties and allows you to create different types of shapes or different types of radii, as a designer you have to think a little bit harder about how to make sure this becomes something that looks like one car even though we use these different materials. We're using these different materials to make sure that the weight distribution of the car is right. In the interior we use many different types of materials all the time. In fact, we're constantly looking for new materials. BMW is one of the first and the only cars that use bamboo in a car interior as a new type of wood. It is actually very sustainable, because it grows very quickly.

You mention mobile technology, are you looking for people who have that kind of background for the design studio?

We draw people out of other businesses for sure. Almost every product in the future will have a user interface, a screen that allows you to interact with the product. We can draw from people from other industries, and we are. But we also always have to be aware that our car is a mobile environment. There is the aspect of driver distraction that we want to be aware of so our challenge is greater than a designer for a mobile phone.

Another trend is that luxury is in the detail. We operate in a segment that is highly competitive and our customers are well informed about what makes the product good or luxurious, both in the exterior and interior. Our current designs are thought of in much greater detail. If you look at a headlamp now, compared to 20 years ago, it's a different world. Today a headlamp consists of 60 pieces. The same is true for interiors. Every little detail is designed to a much higher level than it used to be. It gives us a bit more work to do, but in the end it becomes a far more pleasing.

[Ed: For more on BMW design culture, check out this video interview with Chris Bangle, former BMW Chief of Design!]

Tamara Warren, a Motor City native, is co-founder/editor of the car and culture blogGotryke.com. Her articles have appeared in over 80 publications covering culture, music, the arts, automobiles and design. She has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Delta Sky, Nylon, Vibe, Automobile and Forbes Autos. Check out her work and Gotryke.com and her clips on Tamarawarren.com.

Blackbird Mercedes Goes Tron

This is no run-of-the-mill Mercedes. This is a design exercise that pays homage to Mercedes-Benz’s racing history. The streamlined body is supposed to evoke airplanes, speed and movement. I love looking at exploratory sketches because you can get a feel on what designer Peter Vardai was thinking. As he evolved each shape, the decision to “TRON” out the design seemed like a good idea. Audi just released an official concept so why not Mercedes too?

Idea and Design: Peter Vardai

Final Renders: Tamas Fodor

Water Weighs All

Instead of using all that precious and energy-wasting metal in the construction of a scale, why not use water? That’s what the designer of this fabulous project thought, then he brought it to life – Water Scale, a scale that uses Archimedes’ Principle in a simple container to create just what he thought of in his mind.

The object that is to be weighed is placed ont he scale plate which then sinks into the water in proportion to its mass, overflowing the water which then moves up through channel under the water reservoir. The weight of the object is measured with water and the plastic bead in the channel. This scale can weigh objects up to 1000 grams, and is more economical and lighter than most electric and mechanical scales in the market.

Plus no electricity, no energy consumption – green.

Designer: Muzaffer Kocer & Ayca Guven

Ironing with Ceramic

The precepts of ironing hasn’t changed much. Take a hot flat surface and apply it to textiles to relax the fibers. Sometimes you use steam to crease and set them but if you step back, there’s still room for improvement. The “Easy Ironing” concept lets you define how much ironing you want to do and in turns tells you how much water to use; no waste. It also uses a ceramic glass panel which has superior thermal stability and makes it easier to clean. One of the top 25 finalists in this year’s Philips Award.

Designer: Mohsen Ahi Andy

Design Stinking, a POV on Design Thinking by Cheryl Heller

Cheryl Heller posted a fantastic point of view on the Design Thinking movement. One which aligns with my personal take but instead of posting my interpretation, I'll just let her tell it:

..."Instead of making design a more integral, universal and respected part of business, it creates another silo, another separation. Another category of specialists that builds one more barrier to the kind of real systems thinking we need to survive.

It lulls people into thinking they are being creative when they are not. It harbors procrastination and stereotypical thinking, substitutes process for real invention. It robs design of dimension by placing it solely in the world of the brain when design is much more than rational thinking - it is emotion and intuition and sensing and gut. When does a process become dogma? And why is our culture so afraid of the feminine energy? (Don't answer that, I already know.)

It becomes another bit of ideology that makes it even harder for business to embrace a truly original thinker."...

See her full post >>> HERE

This connects with a discussion about intuition or "gut" that has been going on in the discussion forums: read some of the discussion and contribute >>> HERE

Thanks Amina Horozic for the tip.

Recycling bin design with a suggestive lid

My biggest pet peeve about cleaning up the photo studio I run is picking other people's trash out of the recycling bin. Yes, it's a waste pail just like the garbage pail, but is it not clear that this one's for bottles and that one is for your half-finished pizza, you freaking Philistine?

So I'm digging Qualy Design's recycling bin, which is not only recycleable itself but also has the recycling logo cleverly worked into its lid.

But who am I fooling, this probably isn't going to stop careless rubbish-tossers. What I need is for the lid to be modified into a mechanical aperture that closes shut on a recycling offender's arm, pinning it with the arrow's points.