Hasta La Ideas

Launched in the Fall of last year, Savora is a unique line of kitchen tools designed for both discerning home cooks and car enthusiasts alike. Launched as an in-house project for Lifetime Brands, Savora not only represents a new design language but also a new business approach for the company. Led by Sid Ramnarance, Vice President of Global Brand Integration and former GM and Ford designer, Savora’s design is heavily influenced by the fluidity and sleek finishes normally associated with car exteriors.

At this year’s International Home + Housewares Show, Savora added three new products to their popular foundational offering. A can opener, peeler and ice cream scoop are offered in eight colors along with their rotary grater, garlic press and oil mister. All of the kitchen tools have a nice weight and feel balanced in the hand with comfortable grip for control.

Core77 had an opportunity to speak with Sid about the business of launching a kitchenware line, the influence of his automobile design background and a peek into the design process for developing Savora.

Core77: You started out designing for the auto industry, including work on the fifth generation Ford Mustang. What got you inspired to launch a kitchenware line?

Sid Ramnarance: The inspiration was rooted in the realities that our parent company Lifetime Brands faces as a business. Our business model in kitchenwares had been predicated on two paths for growth; private label and licensing. We came to the realization that while those pillars are very important, we needed a third pillar that could more effectively take advantage of the resources and skills that exist under our roof—we needed an incubator that would serve as a launch pad for new, home-grown brands. By having a home grown brand, we’d have the ability to sell products across housewares categories around the world all with a unique point of view.

Now at the same time, we realized that we live in an age where food and food culture have never been as intertwined with our lives. There’s a whole generation of people who have grown up watching Food Network and who routinely use Yelp or Open Table for recommendations on where to eat. The rise in awareness of what we eat, cross-pollination of foods from around the world, food blogs and celebrity chefs have become a part of our social fabric—think about this; every culture has events, holidays and celebrations where food is a core element; it’s how we celebrate and share company. We wanted to be a part of that conversation—we wanted to develop a line of kitchen tools that was an extension of the passion we have for food. Just think of the cultural shift which recently occurred where a soap opera, once a dominant tool for marketing consumer packaged goods (CPGs) was bumped for a daytime talk/cooking show on a major network—the fact that a show like “The Chew” exists shows how closely we all align ourselves with food and food culture.

So really, the decision to launch this line was based on a convergence of ideas: the need we identified internally, and an opportunity we saw externally.

What are some of the design principles that you bring from auto design into your housewares line?

It’s an approach in which one tries to balance the tangible and intangible benefits. The tangibles are rooted in classic product design—anthropometric studies, quiet observation to illuminate unmet needs and better solutions, and continuous study of competitive products and user reviews. Lifetime Brands is very good at this; they have been in the housewares business for over 50 years.

However, as an automobile designer, I find ways to give form to ideas and concepts that are sometimes very visceral, but somehow less tangible. Design and marketing coalesce into a type of narrative, where the elements of the design convey a concept or illicit an emotional reaction from the consumer. Human beings are not rational beings, and we make decisions everyday based on emotion; what color clothes to wear, which people to associate with and of course, what food we eat. Designing products which appeal to our emotional nature, which are arresting, and have visceral appeal was a core goal. The name is rooted in the term “savor,” the way we want good flavors to linger on the tongue—and we designed a full concept that would facilitate enjoyment in cooking and entertaining.

From a marketing perspective, we conducted a series of archetypal studies, looking for an appealing narrative—a storyline that would carry through into every manifestation of the brand; the logo, the colors, the packaging, etc. I learned this from J Mays during my 10 years at Ford Motor Company who brought a distinct marketing-based approach to how cars were designed. His ability to communicate ideals through visual icons and metaphors were a great foundation to how I approach design. By finding visual clues that fit our archetype, and our communicated our ideals, we put in place a point of view that is noticeably different from other housewares lines.

At the onset of this program; we encouraged every designer to put down the mouse, and begin from an emotional place—by drawing. We looked at classic gesture drawings of the human body—and how the simplicity and efficiency of line captured the essence of motion. We examined why some drawings appear to emphasize tension; while others through “contrapposto” appear more relaxed. Our designers began by trying to capture a gesture for each item they were designing—until they had the minimum amount of information on the page to make a dramatic statement.

Some of the automotive design principles we used include a detailed approach to form development and surfacing; class “A” automotive surfacing is paramount in that industry because reflective surfaces are extremely revealing. We took this type of approach for Savora—where surface continuity was important and curvature conditions carried highlights across a body. The proportions of all of our items are based on cleanliness and expressiveness of side view profiles; which ultimately was a result of the early gesture sketches we did to define each item.

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Photography by LinYee Yuan and Ray Hu for Core77

As always, the 2013 International Home + Housewares Show was the destination for the latest and greatest kitchen gadgets, ergonomic utensils, winsome gift items and even cleaning robots from around the world. We had the chance to catch up with some familiar faces as well as several newcomers looking to establish themselves at the largest show of its kind in the U.S.

This year also saw the 20th Anniversary of the Student Design Competition, which has seen some 4,000+ entries since the program launched in 1993. We had the chance to catch up with this year’s winners, whose work is among our 100 favorite products from this year’s show.

» View Gallery

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Seventy years after Du Pont invented the synthetic sponge in 1942, the folks of Casabella are introducing a new innovation in the cleaning category—a combination kitchen sponge and squeegee.

The “Super Sponge & Squeegee” line is being introduced in three distinct shapes for Kitchen, Dish and Flatware, and bathroom. The slits in the sides of the Dish & Flatware sponge aids in scrubbing knives, forks and spoons while the squeegee gives some extra support for the chore of drying. The Kitchen and Bathroom sponges work for surface cleaning and swiping, the squeegees can also work to scour corners and grout. All three scrubbers are gentle enough to be used on glass, teflon and tile.

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As usual, there was a glut of coffee-related products at this year’s International Home + Housewares Show: we were interested to see that Bodum joined Keurig (to name a few) in the “Wired + Well” section this year, presumably because the former is expanding its eBodum line even as they celebrate the 55th Anniversary of the Santos coffeemaker… but more on that later. Here are two other interesting takes on coffee culture, one a symptom of our collective caffeine dependency (and the distinctly American phenomenon of the to-go cup), the other a story of a startup that’s turning the corner.

I first spotted Mark A. Beckey nonchalantly sporting his Javahook on his way to his booth on Friday morning, making final preparations in anticipation of opening day. A Starbucks cup (the only option at McCormick, besides the free coffee scattered throughout the exhibition halls) rested against his iPad, suspended as if by magic… or, as it turned out, a concealed hook. Although the product itself didn’t require much in the way of explanation, so Beckey delivered a quick escalator pitch anyway (I happened to be right behind him on the way up to the show floor): the Javahook had won Best New Product at Seattle’s CoffeeFest and he was in the running for an IHA Innovation Award as well.

In fact, he might have been better off walking the floor with the device to generate interest, as his booth was in the far end of the North Building, corralled in the so-called Inventors’ Corner (as was the previously-seen Brolly umbrella). I made my way over there on Saturday, where Beckey shared more information about his company: They’re based in San Antonio, Texas, and the product is made in the USA.

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I can’t say we were expecting any major breakthroughs from DCI at the International Home + Housewares Show last weekend, but we’re always happy to catch up with founder Roni Kabessa, who was happy to show us a select few of the dozens of new goodies on the occasion of the company’s 15th anniversay. As with last year, the Providence, RI-based company exhibited a full gamut of products from practical to playful. Our favorites included the Talk Dock, a riff on reappropriating the traditional telephone receiver as a smartphone accessory. DCI’s version has two 1/8” audio jacks for maximum compatibility (there’s no built-in dock, but there’s a slot for a cable).

The broad range of novelty items for the kitchen and office also includes several beverage-related products—here, Roni walks us through the Talk Dock, as well as the Flavor Infusion Cup, Babushka Tea Infuser, Rock and Brew Tea Infuser, drinKooliez, Sandwich Box and Bright Idea LED Light. Check it out:

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