I Learned the Truth at 23!

Well, it is that time of year again. NeoCon is next week, June 11-13, in Chicago. This will be my 23rd consecutive NeoCon, so this year Grant Design Collaborative wanted to approach this annual event from a different perspective. Our team decided to create this experimental blog to share Grant’s unique perspective on NeoCon, design, work and life. We will also be inviting many of our colleagues to collaborate with us on this project, and we have absolutely no idea how it will turn out! Hopefully, it will provide some insight and entertainment as we share our “design thinking” with the world. The blog is meant to be spontaneous, provocative and experimental. Let us know what you think, and please comment and participate. Until then, this is how we got here:

I was working for Shaw Industries the first year I attended NeoCon in 1984. A couple of years later, we launched Shaw Contract. I left Shaw in 1989 and started my own design firm. In the mid-90s, I helped rebrand Interface and collaborated with The Environments Group on their showrooms. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I founded Grant Design Collaborative in 1996, and one of our first clients was Harbinger, a high-end commercial carpet brand owned by Mohawk Industries. After a successful rebranding program, they asked us to design their showroom on the third floor of the Chicago Merchandise Mart in 1998. We completely gutted the space and convinced the client to feature concrete floors in a carpet showroom! We did have insets for their new products and managed to switch out carpet colors and patterns all three days of the show. Our first complete showroom design project was exciting and scary at the same time. While the firm had been very successful in the graphic and brand design fields, interiors were new a frontier. Luckily, we had a great client at Harbinger, and they trusted our design thinking and process. When all was said and done, we won our first of many IIDA Creative Excellence Awards for showroom design in a very talented and competitive arena! In the following years, we were fortunate enough to garner the same accolades for showroom and exhibit design for Blue Ridge Commercial Carpet, Geiger, and SI Flooring Systems. Over the years, we have also provided brand and showroom design for companies such as Herman Miller, Steelcase, Monterey Carpets, Contract magazine, JM Lynne Wallcovering, Beaulieu, Contract magazine, Muraspec, and others.

After achieving much success and recognition in brand design, strategy and interiors, we started getting inquiries about product design and consultation. Of course, we were very excited about these potential business endeavors, but we also paused to consider our role and strategy for product development. We took this very seriously and wanted to approach product design in a very thoughtful and deliberate manner. In 2004, we published a product design manifesto entitled, “We Are What We Make.” This manifesto drew the philosophical line in the sand for both our clients and us by defining how we intended to work as “product designers.” We created several criteria for any potential product design collaboration, including:

• We will evolve.
• We will discover.
• We will make ordinary extraordinary.
• We will be realistic.
• We will collaborate.
• We will respect the environment.
• We will move people.
• We will create value.
• We will know the customer.
• We will take risks.
• We will have fun.

Although somewhat lofty and ambitious, we have found these filters to be extremely beneficial in determining the potential fit for product design collaborations. After all, statements such as “we will take risks” do not appeal to conventional, mass market brands! Since the manifesto was published, Grant Design Collaborative has truly evolved, and we feel we are staying true to our core values along the way. Poised to make the next design leap into product development, we found ourselves at a crossroads. We realized that Grant Design Collaborative’s ideal clients were visionary c-level decision makers willing to take calculated risks to bring innovative products and processes to market. Like our firm, they have a reinvention mindset.They recognize the superior profit potential of such ventures as well as the essential role great design thinking plays in making them happen. It is among this group of forward-thinking individuals that we saw the greatest opportunities for defining and delivering significant design value, and we began our evolution to a product-to-market design firm.

In 2005, we launched our first two Product to Market (p2m) clients. Our p2m philosophy approaches product and brand design in a holistic and systematic manner. For us, p2m allows us to use out strategic design thinking skills to create innovative products as well as new frameworks for having them manufactured and distributed. Ideally, we influence the entire path, from concept to design to manufacturing to marketing to sales and distribution. This places Grant Design Collaborative in a very unique position. By building brands from the product “up,” we offer a single source for integrated, strategic product and brand development. One of our first product-to-market projects was for Contract magazine. Grant has had a longstanding relationship with Jennifer Busch and the team at Contract. In 2000,they retained our firm to redesign Contract Design, and it was a really great project. We launched the new design to much success and fanfare at NeoCon West in LA, and I will never forget driving down Rodeo Drive after the launch party with Jennifer and her team in a convertible listening to Prince! It was a perfect evening and fond memory. Since the redesign, Contract has done very well. In 2005, they hired us again to evaluate their market strategy, tweak the publication design and develop a new NeoCon product for them. After careful research and analysis, we developed the Contract Network to connect designers and architects with the right product solutions, including the Best of NeoCon product winners. The network was an instant success and has become a great tool for designers as well as Contract’s advertisers. We also assisted Contract in launching and marketing the Network at NeoCon 2005, and we have designed the Contract Connection Lounge for the past three years as well. Check it out this year on the 8th floor of the Mart, Space 8118.

Also in 2005, we launched our most ambitious product-to-market endeavor to date: Set Wallcovering Systems. Set was a new national commercial wallcovering system, and Grant Design Collaborative was retained to design the strategy, brand identity, brand name, showroom, advertising, marketing collateral, packaging, and all products. It was an incredible and challenging learning experience, but once again, the Grant team exceeded all expectations! At NeoCon 2005, we did a soft launch to introduce the brand and systematic product strategy to the design community. We did this with very little actual product, but it got a lot of attention. At NeoCon 2006, we had most of the products in place and were extremely honored to win the Gold Best of NeoCon Award for wall treatments – a huge achievement for any new brand! Set was also one of the five finalists for Best of Competition, so needless to say, we were very happy with this recognition for our approach to product design. This year, STEP magazine published a great story on our p2m design strategy for Set Wallcovering Systems, so read more about it, and let us know what you think.

At NeoCon 2007, Grant Design Collaborative is involved in several interesting projects. Once again, we are working with our client, Geiger, on their showroom design and product introductions. They are located two blocks from the Mart at 300 West Hubbard Street, Suite 400. This year, Geiger is debuting their Caucus Tables by Robert Allen. The tables are really beautiful and smart, and they expand from small private worktables to extensive conference and board tables. In addition to Caucus, Geiger is launching their new Color Portfolio designed by Grant Design Collaborative! The Geiger Color Portfolio features an extensive color system of veneer stains and paints that were all designed to work together. Now designers can combine stains and colors in an infinite array of applications for Geiger’s great casegood systems. See the Color Portfolio display in the Geiger showroom as well as its application to actual products on the floor.

In addition to Geiger and Contract magazine, we worked once again with our long-term client, Herman Miller, on the design of the NeoCon Student Day materials, and it is always an honor and pleasure to work with Miller’s visionary A+D team.

There you have it: our very first post on our Product-to-Market blog! Hopefully, future posts will be a much quicker read! Grant Design Collaborative welcomes your comments and feedback to this experimental site, and we look forward to sharing NeoCon 2007 and future events and endeavors through our unique perspective. So, put on your design thinking caps, and come along for the ride. Look for us in the Mart elevators, stairwells, at NeoCon parties and, of course, the bar. Cheers!

Bill Grant, AIGA
President and Creative Director
Grant Design Collaborative