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Cleaner Look for Holstee Checkout
When we gave the Holste site a facelift back in November, much of the design changes were inspired by our customers. The new site is a reflection of the consistent feedback we received on what would make for a better online shopping experience.More recently we consolidated feedback on the checkout page and just pushed updates to the site. Here are few of the highlights you can look forward to upon your next checkout:- Contact information is now more accesible- Removed Google checkout because no one was using it- Made it clearer that Paypal was an option and not a requirement- Unified header and footer design with rest of site and increased width to 960px- Highlighted that by default, items would ship to billing address but can easily be unchecked to specify shipping address.As always if you ever have any specific design or user experience feedback let us know by emailing ux@holstee.com or leaving a comment below. We dig your opinion.
Just Launched: The Upcycled Wallet - Delhi Rang
Today we are launching our upcyled minimalist wallet in a new multicolor style: Delhi Rang. The name pays homage to the city (Delhi) where the colored (Rang, meaning ‘color’ in Hindi) plastic bags are collected off the streets, cleaned and sorted before being hand stitched into this slim wallet design.
As with the other wallets we have partnered with Conserve India, a socially focused NGO in India determined to help those often referred to as 'rag pickers' by providing fair wage employment, education and health care for employees and their families. As each wallet is handmade and without using any dyes, each is one-of-a-kind in its pattern and style based on the specific colored bags used to make each wallet.
Upcycling is the process of taking items out of the waste stream and creating higher value items from them without the need to break them down (recycling), a process that not only reduces waste in new production but also prolongs the life of the otherwise discarded plastic bag - providing a high quality, minimally designed, vegan wallet. The equally mindful and convenient packaging is made from 90% recycled material and is fully biodegradable.
As with all Holstee products, 10% of sales are lent to entrepreneurs in the developing world through their partnership with Kiva.org.
Check out the Delhi Rang wallet here: http://shop.holstee.com/products/the-upcycled-wallet-delhi-rang
OAT Shoes: Biodegradable kicks that bloom
via oatshoes.comI love products that are designed beyond their intended use, especially when they are super slick looking.
The folks at OAT did just this when they launched this biodegradable sneaker made of hemp, organic cotton and biodegradable plastic.
Can't get them in the US just yet, but who knows.. maybe soon ;-)
The Jell-O Mold Competition: Call to Entry!
The Jell-O Mold Competition has taken Jell-O out of the cafeteria, but the time has come to take it out of the kitchen altogether and into the world at large! This year, Jell-O takes New York.
To get things wobbling, we took Jell-O out to the city and into the classroom for a Jell-O Mold Workshop for NYC high school students run in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, with additional support from Smart Design--now it's your turn to get in on the adventure.
This year's competition asks designers to explore the everyday uses of this wobbly, delicious, shape shifting medium.
Designers will compete for cash prizes, a year membership to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, gifts from Papabubble, Holstee, and more!
A crack panel of respected judges including Allan Chochinov of Core77, Emily Elsen of Four & Twenty Blackbirds pie shop, Keith Ozar of MakerBot, and Josee Lepage of creative agency Bondtoo will announce the winners at 8pm on Saturday, June 25, 2011. The judging and awards ceremony will be held at the Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn.
Enter today!
www.gowanusstudio.org/jelloFor some inpiration checkout last years winners:
'Cradle to Cradle' making fast rounds @holstee
Cradle to Cradle By William McDonough and Michael Braungart
If you happen to make, design or consume anything, bump this up on your reading queue.I think many of the design schools in ny have already made this book required reading for their freshman classes, and I can understand why. It's packed with a powerful timely message, but still very different from what I expected. Its not a super tree hugger, anti-capitalistic/ growth book. Infact it makes a case for how nature has always prospered from growth, just in a different way than humans have approached growth for the past couple hundred years.
Mcdonough and Braungart challenge the design fundamentals our society is built upon. They bring to light the difference between being eco-efficient and eco-effective, what it means to design beyond even the intended life of a product and sharply calls to question packaging in all respects. From a consumer's standpoint, it brings up jarring facts about the rates of our consumption, and the impact it currently has- but becoming more aware of these issues is the only way to confront and eventually solve them.
By being educated, mindful consumers, we can better support and really elect how the next generations of foods are grown, products are made and people are treated.
If you haven't already, pick it up and read it. If you have, I'd love to learn your favorite takeaways.
Help U.S. farmers grow Hemp in America again
Why Give Hemp a Chance? Because today the Earth could really use your help. "Deforestation. World hunger. Fossil fuel depletion. Economic recession. Many of our planet’s biggest problems could potentially be solved—or at least substantially relieved—with a single plant. Hemp, marijuana’s non-psychoactive sibling, is nature’s single most versatile crop. Twenty-five thousand different products can be produced from it—from ice cream to insulation—and it only takes a hundred or so days to grow. Not only that, it replenishes topsoil, requires zero pesticides and yields the most perfect protein source known to man. One of the biggest drawbacks? It’s illegal to cultivate in America, as our first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, claimed his men couldn’t distinguish it from its lurid sister: pot. Seventy some years later, we could be on a crash course with extinction because cops couldn’t sit through a botany class. " 303 Magazine
"Agriculture is the largest source of pollution in most countries. 2.4% of the world’s crop land is planted with cotton and yet it accounts for 24% and 11% of the global sales of insecticide and pesticides respectively." WWF
Industrial Hemp is not water intensive, cotton is water intensive. "It can take more than 20,000 litres of water to produce a cotton t-shirt and pair of jeans." WWF. "The difference in producing a hemp t-shirt and a cotton one is 300 gallons of water per shirt." HIA
With your help, industrial hemp could be re-elected this year in California. You can help change the law to permit the cultivation of industrial hemp as an agricultural crop. SB 676 would enable American farmers to grow industrial hemp.
We invite you to help U.S. farmers follow in the footsteps of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, all who were hemp farmers, to once again grow this sustainable and profitable non-drug crop. Contact President Barack Obama here.
via change.orgI was glad to have received an email recently from Rob Jungmaven, a hemp producer and activist. Over the last year or two at Holstee we have come to learn more and more about the amazing natural qualities of Hemp especially for clothing.
Above are just a few of the amazing facts. Moving forward on the design side we would love to incorporate the strength and sustainable benefits of Hemp into our production and being able to source domestically than from across the world will help us reach even higher environmental standards.
Thanks for signing and spreading the word.
Inspired by Biomimicry
First off here is a definition of biomimicry from the folks over at Ask Nature:
Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The core idea is that Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more.
Read more on Ask Nature: What is Biomimicry
This planet has had the opportunity to perfect its design quality over millions of years - it is no surprise that its practically perfect in functionality and beauty and needless to say sustainable by nature :-)
The idea of learning from nature in not only design but technology is not new. Wikipedia mentions Leonardo DaVinci's "Flying Machine" as one of the earliest and best know examples - spending hours watching birds which inspired his creation.
There are plenty of other amazing exampls of biomimicry but one of our most recent favorites comes friends of ours at the Pratt Sustainable Design Incubator, SMIT, the creators of Solar Ivy. We were originally introduced to Solar Ivy by close friend of Holstee and our Guatemalan Ambassador, Lucia who interned with them here in NYC. Since then we always find ourselves talking about it as an amazing example of innovation inspired by nature.
Solar Ivy mimics the ivory plant which grows along side buildings and is meant to cover a roof or facade of a building. Each "leaf" collects solar energy for the house. In addition to just generating solar energy as leafs rustle in the wind the Solar Ivy leaves are designed to collect kinetic wind energy. To top it off the designers are looking into sustainable production methods for the leaves. So awesome - I get excited just talking about it!
For more information on biomimicry and some really neat case studies check out: http://www.asknature.org and follow them on twitter: @AskNatureTweets
Bambica: Bamboo furniture designed by you
Last week we had the chance to meet John Fitzpatrick, one of the founders of Bambica! Bambica is dedicated to the design and production of contemporary furniture using bamboo and other environmentally sustainable materials. John and his partner Andrew are just about to launch their first product: a modular shelving system, which can be constructed, re-constructed, taking apart and rebuild by the customer...over and over again! So no matter what living situation you are in, Bambica will fit in.
The fact that fascinated me the most about Bambica was, as soon as John started talking about Bambica, i had to try it out, play with it, stick the pieces together, take them apart and so on. Sorry John, I wasn't even able to listen anymore! ;) John and Andrew found a way to put the design in the hands of the customer, so that way the customer can build its own, unique piece of furniture. I really love the way Bambica encourages you to create something on your own and not just to buy something that can be found in every other living room as well.
Welcome: Chris Novotny our Product Architect
For the last couple weeks, Holstee has had a new face around the office. He's a new set of creative eyes, a young environmental designer, trained as an architect, but more importantly, a problem solver. Born in New York, Chris has recently moved back to the city after spending the last four years studying architecture and the University of Colorado in Boulder. As a new graduate, Chris got in touch with us after a recommendation from our friends at Fresh Thrills and after passing a few in house design challenges it was clear that Chris not only shared our deisgn aesthetic but our values and work style as well.
Keep your eye out for product updates and design ideas from Chris in the upcoming weeks!
Read our learnings from overseas production on Core77
Here is an excerpt of our four key learnings for doing production overseas:
There are no assumptions.
Culture, technology, language, taste, ethics, values—don't take anything for granted and make no assumptions. Set all of your expectations from the beginning and make them clear. How fast do you expect to hear back on emails? Is it important that you are able to call and get through to someone? Did you specify everything down to the kerning on your packaging font? If you are picky and want things to run smoothly don't leave anything to the imagination. Communicate however you can; record videos, draw images, make tech packs, use Skype. For everyone's sake, always confirm everything over email. If you find yourself relaying lots of information over email make sure it's in bullets. It will make it easier to identify your points and respond to them quickly.
Go Local.
If you are producing overseas, it's most ecological, and often even economical, to set aside a few weeks for prototyping on site. Ideally, you would submit your sketches and technical design weeks in advance and arrive when they are ready. Then you'll have 2-3 weeks to make final design changes, discuss quality concerns, and go through any packaging plans. You may also discover better locally sourced raw materials that you may not have known about before. As a designer/entrepreneur I am sure 2-3 weeks sounds like too much time to be away from your business but it can save countless hours of back and forth communication and, more importantly, the costly chances that issues may arise post-production. (Personal tip: don't forget to enjoy and explore the local area—there is no point to doing this if you don't love it and have fun.)
Get excited but stay focused on quality.
Sometimes the excitement of a new product makes it hard to see quality flaws. With any product, especially handmade products, consistency/quality can be a challenge. Have a checklist of ways you plan to test the quality and endurance of your product with you before you arrive. Start carrying and using the prototype right away. Depending on the product, be sure to wash it, dry it, leave it in the sun, drop it, bury it, soak it—think about any possible scenario the product may find a take it to the next level.
Don't leave empty handed.
Try and leave with the final prototype so you can take product photos as soon as possible. Often times the missing link for pre-orders is a high-quality photo of the actual product, this capital raised from pre-production sales can help fund the production round.
Read the full post on Core77 - such an honor!!
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