We love design. We really, really love design. Learn about our process!
Lights! Camera! America by Design!
We were invited to take part in the CBS TV series America by Design, a show celebrating American innovation, ingenuity, and design excellence. It was a blast. And guess what? We made the top ten!
God is in the details.
Pam shares some of the thought behind the design of our visual measuring cups. Tidy nesting? Check. Mathy typeface? Check. Labels that get more legible, not less, with use? Check, check, check.
MoMA Store, here we come!
Visual Measuring Cups started shipping in July 2019, and will be available at select retailers this fall, including the MoMA Design Store + catalog. The gift box packaging was designed specifically for this type of retail environment. Hang-tag packaging for mass retailers is also in the works.
Iterate, iterate, iterate.
It took four years and lots of prototyping to arrive at the current design. The first sketch quickly gave way to a rough 3D printed version which brought the concept to life and could be shared with people for feedback. Further explorations were made regarding the handle, the nesting configuration, and whether or not to include a hole.
Designed and made in Chicago!
Welcome Industries chooses to work locally. We enjoy collaborating closely with our manufacturing partners. Carol Ebel and Alan Klingler of Janler Corporation in Chicago are shown here with Pam while the tooling was being done to create the mold for the visual measuring cups.
Global Innovation Award finalist at the Housewares Show!
We exhibited at the International Home + Housewares Show in March and were honored to have our Visual Measuring Cups be named a finalist for the 2019 Global Innovation Awards. The show was a great opportunity to get feedback on our packaging concepts too, and interact with prospective buyers.
If at first you don't succeed…
In May 2018, we attempted to raise the funds for production of our Visual Measuring Cups via a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. Sadly, we didn't meet our funding goal, (which hadn't crossed our mind as a possibility, since we had two prior Kickstarters under our belt which fully funded and even shipped on time!). We DID get the support of over 500 backers though and had fun doing a Kickstarter Live video explaining the design journey. Here we are broadcasting from Studio5.