Hasta La Ideas

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pa href=”http://www.josephjoseph.com/”Joseph Joseph/a is no stranger to the pages of Core77, blogged a a href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/sneak_peek_at_joseph_josephs_new_line_of_kitchenware_14591.asp”couple/a of a href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/new_york_international_gift_fair_faves_joseph_josephs_clever_kitchenware_14425.asp”times/a in the past year or so. We ran into Richard Joseph, one of the twins behind the company, at the Home and Housewares Show in Chicago earlier this week and had a little chat about the rapidly growing business, a success story sure to be interesting to any aspiring design business owner. /p

p(Oh, and watch above as Richard demos their newest product: the Quicksnap Ice Cube tray, designed by Graeme Davies. This was launched at the Gift Fair earlier this year, but it’s nice to see it in action!)/p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/03/jj-orb.jpg” width=”468″ height=”625″ alt=”jj-orb.jpg”//div

pemA brand new addition to Joseph Joseph: the Orb Mortar and Pestle/em/p

pbOn the history of the company:/bbr /
Though the company was founded in 2003, the story actually starts three generations ago, with a grandfather who owned a glass manufacturing business in Birmingham. The twins’ father still owned that business when they were at university, making “glass worktop savers” for cutting, preparing and serving food. Though these were popular for a long time, sales began to decline alongside the product’s heyday. That’s when Dad called Richard, formerly a design engineer at Dyson and a Cambridge Business grad, and Antony, a designer from Central St. Martins, in for a revival. The updated worktop savers (see below) took off, Dad sold the business, and the twins started Joseph Joseph with a customer base of 10. To this day, they still make the savers, manufactured in their own glass factory./p

pimg alt=”jj-worktop.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/jj-worktop.jpg” width=”468″ height=”313″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pemJoseph Joseph’s take on the traditional glass worktop saver/em/p

pbOn growing pains:/bbr /
When asked if starting a new company was at all scary, Richard said that “they were naive, up for it, and with nothing to lose.” After hiring a friend to handle sales, the team set about developing new products. At first, they tackled anything they found interesting, all over the domestic spectrummdash;a href=”http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/pillows-decorative-office-accessories/wall-clocks-from-joseph-joseph-069242″clocks/a, for example. But they soon realized that with such a small customer base, it was better for business that they focus: “Our buyers loved the clocks, but it didn’t make sense for them to buy them, as they were mostly in the business of kitchenware.” For Joseph Joseph, focusing on kitchens made sense beyond appealing to their buyers; it was a time when foodie culture and celebrity chefs were popular, and the brothers thought that the industry could use a bit of a kick in the pants as well./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/home_and_housewares_2010the_story_of_joseph_joseph_16205.asp”(more…)/a
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