7/27/2019 Article about (ELEVEN) for Design Museum Boston catalog

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Below is an essay I wrote in 2011 or the exhibition catalogue or the Design Museum Boston ex-hibit Creative Capital: Designed in Boston. I interviewed Ben Beck and Glen Walter, two ounderso the product design rm (ELEVEN), as well as some o their employees involved in graphic andproduct design and ethnographic research. I personally visited their ofces and recorded their inter-views on tape, which gave me special insight into their methods and approach.

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Product designer Glen Walter has a message for indus-

try. How many products does a society need? he writes

in a 2010 article for the Design Management Institute

Review. How much plastic can we put into the earth?

Do products really make us happier? Product designers

may often say that a truly effective design doesnt have to

rely on marketing in order to demonstrate its value. Walter

means it. At (ELEVEN), the product design rm Walter

co-founded with Ben Beck, Dave Harting, and Doug

Marsden, strategic problem solving isnt rhetoric meant

to justify stylish workits an approach that informs the

design process from the earliest planning stages onward.

Beck describes (ELEVEN)s methodology as a phi-losophy of diving deep into the consumer mind, unearth-

ing their needs, wants and frustrations, and to not be

afraid too early in the process to choose more than one

way of delivering on a solution. Says Beck, The world

is lled with many problemswere primarily focused

on the physical and experiential opportunities which

affect people, pets and their environments. Founded in

1996, (ELEVEN) has worked with clients ranging from

Gillette to Burton Snowboards. Our exhibition Creative

Capital: Designed in Boston features a line of bar tools

that (ELEVEN) designed for the housewares brand OXO.

From sporting goods to pet products to consumer elec-

tronics, (ELEVEN) has designed and developed many

successful products, both for external clients as well as

for their internal licensing business, called 11.5, through

which Beck, Walter, and company create, license, and sell

products of their own inspiration.

The importance of building products that positively

affect their users lives is never far from Ben Becks

mind. Born to a creative family, Beck grew up around his

parents product design studiohis father an industrial

designer and mother an interior designer. While at RISD,

Beck says he questioned his future career path, but -

nally settled on design (versus ne arts) as my professionbecause I felt it better enabled me to directly match the

needs of society with creative solutions. Says Beck, you

werent signing it, you were anonymous, which felt right,

a positive community involvement in a greater cause.

Walter takes a similar view. Which is more rewarding,

creating breakthrough products that achieve record sales

at Wal-Mart, or stylizing products selected for their aes-

thetic beauty to be displayed on permanent collection at

MOMA? he writes. Both are respectable goals; but per-

haps a bit too much attention is currently paid to products

that solve the problems of only an elite few.

Some of (ELEVEN)s breakthrough products have

come from a pedestrian category indeed: pet care. The

Walkabout Leash and the Booda Dome were both devel-

oped and licensed by (ELEVEN) internally. Besides help-

ing to diversify the rms billings, Beck believes the expe-

rience in developing and licensing products is one of the

unique things that makes (ELEVEN) attractive to a wide

range of clients. We know what it takes to spend the time

dealing with the ups and downs of getting [a successful

product] to market, from insights to manufacturing and

distribution, getting it on the shelf, getting consumers to

repurchase, dealing with recalls, all those things you dont

usually get to see, he said. I think a lot of people aredrawn to the fact that we have that backbone. From their

work on leashes and litter boxes, (ELEVEN)s product de-

velopment and licensing operation has branched out of pet

products and sporting goods, into Housewares, furniture,

and new business development opportunities. Its sort

of been a domino effect from where we started in the pet

industry. Some of the movement to furniture has been in-

terestinglicensing and royalties are very common in the

furniture industry so it feels to be a natural t for us, he

says. One of (ELEVEN)s recent licensing ventures is the

Trey Chair, a desk chair designed for college dorms. The

A conversation with (ELEVEN)

7/27/2019 Article about (ELEVEN) for Design Museum Boston catalog

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seat can be broken down into a small rocking chair and a

at stool, which can be used as an end table or a second

seat. Northeastern University, New England University,

and Worcester Polytechnic Institute have each purchased

hundreds of the chairs, with 40,000 sold to colleges and

universities across North America. Creating products for

(ELEVEN)s own licensing division keeps Beck and his

staff busy in between client projects. The good side is

that when we slow down with our fee-for-service, we al-ways have work, because we always have projects on the

shelf that are at different points of development, which is

exciting. So we slow down a little bit but our team doesnt

slow downit keeps it fresh.

(ELEVEN)s staff includes not only the expected

product designers and engineers, but also a graphic

designer and a psychologist. All spoke of a collaborative

environment. Here at (ELEVEN) were really integrated

from the beginning, which is one of the things that I re-

ally love about working here, said engineer Liz Delno.

Engineers participate in brainstorming from day one, and

theres a continuous discourse between engineering anddesignIts such a small place here that its really easy to

keep everyone involved and aware of whats going on.

Craig Cloutier works on graphics for the rms prod-

ucts as well as the rms website and marketing materials.

Sometimes Ill design packaging graphics, he said, but

the majority of the work that I do is sort of the upfront

research stagesIll work with the industrial designers on

the research phase and then help them communicate their

ndings as well as their ideas to the client. As the sole

graphic designer in the ofce, Cloutier is in a unique posi-

tion. Working around designers of a different discipline,

he says, has given him a new way of looking at the designprocess. I think graphic designers sometimes do things

really quick, really off the cuff, because its so easy to get

something out. If youre doing a website, you can get it

up there pretty quickly. And so, working with industrial

designers, I think Ive learned a lot about the in-depth

process that goes into it and more about design thinking

than what Id normally do.

At the beginning of this year, (ELEVEN) added an-

other employee who brings a different perspective to the

world of product design. Shelly Ronen is (ELEVEN)s

psychologist. For the design process Im really the front

end person, she said. Im their rst point of contact as it

were in making the translation from what the client is ask-

ing for to how were going to approach it as a design team

and sort of what our point of entry will be conceptually.

So really what Im concerned with is building frameworks

within which to think about the problems. Ronen draws

from existing research while also designing surveys and

observing people in order to generate insights that the

designers can use in developing products. Its mostly

about translating and changing the lens that we use to look

at the problem. The more changes we make and the more

iterations we make in altering the way we think about the

problem, the richer the opportunity will be when it comes

to the actual brainstorm. And once we equip ourselves

with the tools, the industrial designers take over, as it

were, and take the lead through to the subsequent phases

of our process.

Referring to growing up in his father parents studio,

Beck said, Its funny how I ended up here creating a

similar size company with a team of great people to

then do [product design], as a second generation. Its an

honor to be in that position. Beck, Walter and company

have kept the rm small in order to avoid bureaucracy

and better facilitate the integrated working practices that

(ELEVEN)s employees agree are central to the rms

success. With the companys successful licensing ventures

as well as their traditional fee-for-service work, (ELEV-

EN) looks to be a xture on the Boston design scene for

generations to come.

(ELEVEN)s ofces. Te space is lled with memorabilia rom the rms open house and party held November 11 each year.