Hasta La Ideas

The thing I love about local papers as opposed to the nationals is that the former will take the time to look at “small-time” designers, not just the superstars. I put “small-time” in quotes because it’s still possible to not have your name known and still make a bundle of cash with your own industrial design firm. Says industrial designer Scott Collins, who runs his own firm out of Brown Deer, Wisconsin, “I’m not a multimillionaire, but it’s a very good living and I’ll have a good retirement.”

For every Starck, Rashid and Grcic there are probably thousands of guys like Collins. An article in Milwaukee’s Journal-Sentinel looks at Collins and his unsung firm, and after hunting down his portfolio I was surprised to see I use two of his designs (this bathroom fan light and this paint edger) despite never having heard of him. His firm has clients that you have heard of but whose names don’t immediately spring to mind when asked to run down the giants of U.S. industry: Kimberly-Clark, Johnson Controls, Sherwin-Williams.

The jewel in his portfolio’s crown is probably this person-friendly and humanitarian mousetrap Collins designed back in 2002. And it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s famous (it isn’t) in design journals: The thing is sold by Wal-Mart. Collins, it seems, actually has built a better mousetrap.

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