Smart Design Explained

Industry:Design firm, industrial design, interaction design, branding
Founder:Davin Stowell
Location City:New York City
Location Country:United States
Area Served:Worldwide
Key People:Davin Stowell, Richard Whitehall, Tucker Fort
Type:Private
Website:smartdesignworldwide.com

Smart Design (or Smart) is a design consultancy based in New York City.[1] Smart was founded in 1980 by industrial designers Davin Stowell, Tom Dair, Tucker Viemeister, and Tamara Thomsen, with Stowell serving as CEO.[2] [3] [4] The firm has been a prominent presence in the design industry since the late 1980s, as design competency increasingly came to be seen as "key to industrial competitiveness".[5] [6] [7]

The company has had offices in San Francisco, Barcelona, and London at various points in its history in addition to its NYC headquarters, and has worked with clients including HP, Johnson & Johnson, Gillette, BBVA, PepsiCo's Gatorade, and Pyrex.[8] [9] In 2012, the company worked with the City's Taxi and Limousine Commission to redesign NYC's iconic taxis as part of a collaboration with Nissan titled the Taxi of Tomorrow,[10] [11] [12] and also developed the now ubiquitous logo and decals found on the city's yellow taxis and green boro taxis.[13] [14]

The firm is best known for its design of the original Oxo Good Grips line in 1989, and longstanding relationship with Oxo, which continues to this day.[15] The Good Grips potato peeler, the first in what would become a large range, was designed with OXO founder Sam Faber's wife Betsy in mind, who suffered from Arthritis.[16] [17] [18] [19] [20] The Good Grips range of products is often cited as an archetypal example of an approach to industrial design involving user-centered prototyping and iteration, and where considerations of human factors and accessibility make a product better for all users.[21] [22] [23] [24] The Good Grips line is represented in the permanent collections of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and New York's Museum of Modern Art.[25]

In 2010, the company won the National Design Award for product design from the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt.[26]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Smart Design - About. 2021-10-17. Smart Design. en-US. 2021-10-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20211017040808/https://smartdesignworldwide.com/about/. live.
  2. Web site: 2011-03-28. Davin Stowell. 2021-10-17. Industrial Designers Society of America - IDSA. en. 2019-03-08. https://web.archive.org/web/20190308225802/http://www.idsa.org/members/davin-stowell. live.
  3. Web site: 2014-08-29. Interview with Davin Stowell, founder of Smart Design. 2021-10-17. designboom. en. 2017-06-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20170613081416/http://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-designer-davin-stowell-founder-of-smart-design-08-20-2014. live.
  4. Web site: 2021-01-18. Tucker Viemeister American Product Designer. 2021-10-17. Encyclopedia of Design. en-US. 2021-10-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20211017044515/https://encyclopedia.design/2021/01/18/tucker-viemeister-american-product-designer/. live.
  5. Book: Meikle, Jeffrey L.. Design in the USA (Oxford History of Art). 2005-05-05. Oxford University Press. 978-0-19-151802-7. 187. en.
  6. News: Nussbaum. Bruce. 11 April 1988. Smart Design: Quality is the New Style. 102–168. Business Week.
  7. Giles. David. Maldonado. Cristina. Aaron. Susanna. Candu. Lucia. Dolan. Seamus. Mason. Kevin. 2011. GROWTH BY DESIGN: SNAPSHOTS OF NYC'S DESIGN FIELDS. Center for an Urban Future. 14–22. JSTOR.
  8. Web site: Smart Design - Clients. 2021-10-17. Smart Design. en-US. 2021-10-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20211017040806/https://smartdesignworldwide.com/clients/. live.
  9. News: Green. Penelope. 2010-11-03. Erica Eden of Smart Design on Pyrex. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-16. 0362-4331.
  10. Web site: Taxi of Tomorrow. 2022-01-17. Design Trust for Public Space.
  11. News: Grossman. Andrew. 2011-05-03. New York's New Taxi Will Be a Nissan. en-US. Wall Street Journal. 2022-01-17. 0099-9660.
  12. News: Blint-Welsh. Tyler. 2018-06-12. It Was Billed as the 'Taxi of Tomorrow.' Tomorrow Didn't Last Long.. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-17. 0362-4331.
  13. Web site: Dunlap. David W.. 2012-08-22. In the City, 'T' Stands for Taxi. 2022-01-17. City Room. en-US.
  14. Web site: Johnston. Garth. 2012-08-23. New Taxi Design Will Kill Last Vestige Of Checkered Cabs. 2022-01-17. Gothamist. en.
  15. Book: Molotch, Harvey. Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come To Be As They Are. 2004-11-23. Routledge. 978-1-135-94635-7. 37, 42, 215. en.
  16. Web site: Smart Design, New York. Good Grips Peeler. 1989 MoMA. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20210423132541/https://www.moma.org/collection/works/3758. 2021-04-23. 2021-10-17. The Museum of Modern Art. en.
  17. Book: Kanbar, Maurice. Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook. 2001. Council Oak Books. 978-1-57178-099-7. en.
  18. Web site: Good Grips Prototype For A Peeler Handle. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20211017043618/https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18790833/. 2021-10-17. 2021-10-17. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. en-us.
  19. Web site: Wilson. Mark. 2018-09-24. The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20210726033920/https://www.fastcompany.com/90239156/the-untold-story-of-the-vegetable-peeler-that-changed-the-world. 2021-07-26. 2021-10-17. Fast Company. en-US.
  20. Book: King. Simon. Understanding Industrial Design: Principles for UX and Interaction Design. Chang. Kuen. 2016-01-20. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". 978-1-4919-2036-7. en.
  21. Web site: OXO International - Case - Harvard Business School. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20210203220625/https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=22667. 2021-02-03. 2021-10-17. www.hbs.edu.
  22. Book: Baisya. Rajat K.. Aesthetics in Marketing. Das. G. Ganesh. 2008-03-11. SAGE Publishing India. 978-93-5280-096-4. en.
  23. Web site: Good Grips Prototype For A Peeler. 2022-01-16. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. en-us.
  24. Web site: POV. Freedom Machines POV PBS. 2022-01-17. POV American Documentary Inc.. en-US.
  25. News: Nicholls. Walter. 1999-10-27. Getting a Grip. en-US. Washington Post. 2022-01-16. 0190-8286.
  26. Web site: 2019-09-05. 2010 National Design Award Winners Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. 2022-01-16. www.cooperhewitt.org. en-US.

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