The Joy of Fred Blog » Company News
Posted January 20, 2009 in Company News, Publicity. Tagged with .
The
Design Boom blog has a little retrospective of the collaborations between Fred and the Design Boom-supported designers over the last few years. Design Boom is an invaluable resource for young and emerging designers to promote their work to manufacturers like us. Through numerous international design competitions and designer trade show markets, DB makes the connections needed to bring creative products to life. It has been a wonderful relationship, that we here at Fred truly value.
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Posted July 17, 2008 in Company News, Publicity. Tagged with .
We're very proud of the work of Fred's in-house design team, but we're always on the lookout for new concepts from around the world that fit with our product sensibilities. This season, we licensed two great ideas from the pages of
Make: Magazine, a print and web collection of new ideas from a number of do-it-yourself creatives.
Windell Oskay's sawed-off USB concept became our
Hacked! and
Michelle Kempner's Police Line scarf idea became the product we've named
FUZZ. We are really excited to bring these two items to market, and hope that this is just the beginning of a long and mutually-beneficial relationship with the Make community.
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Posted May 06, 2008 in Company News, Stuff We Like. Tagged with .
We love fun, interactive retail spaces that engage shoppers and make the buying experience more interesting. We were very happy to receive photos of two brand new spaces in Russia called
The Boom Boom Room. Hand-painted graphics of missiles and bombs line the walls of the Moscow shop, while the Samara space features comic-style badasses . We are happy to see our stuff on the shelves, and hope the Boom Boom Room is a real bang. See more images here
1 2 3
We would like to feature more retail greatness on our blog. If you sell Fred, and have a killer space to show off, please let us know.
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Posted May 01, 2008 in Commentary, Company News. Tagged with .
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We should be extremely flattered then, that Target has chosen to duplicate one of our most popular items, Ice Kabobs. How come we don't feel so good then?
Target has just unveiled a new line by fashion designer Cynthia Rowley. The "Whim Line" is a collection of summertime party items ranging from table cloths to beach chairs, and yes, ice trays. To say that this tray was "inspired" by our product would be an understatement. Target has even named it the "kabob ice cube tray". Clever! They have managed to cheapen it though, by making it smaller, using inferior materials, and packaging it in a
polybag.
When companies like Target or Ikea release furniture that "looks" like expensive designer originals, many people (and I include myself here) tend to accept it and look the other way because they are making something available to the masses that previously only the elite could enjoy. But that doesn't diminish the fact that the original design does belong to someone else, and is the product of their ingenuity, investment, risk-taking, blood, sweat, and tears. In this case, the original product isn’t even high-priced; it’s pretty much affordable to everybody – so the Robin Hood metaphor really doesn’t play.
I'm not quite sure how much control Cynthia Rowley or any of the name-brand designers have over their Target lines. This is pure speculation on my part, but I see this as more likely a situation where some gutless Target “merchandiser” bought a bunch of stuff in the specialty market, dumbed it down and squeezed out some of the cost (and quality), coordinated the colors, and sought a designer-for-hire to give it cachet. That’s not how we do things here at Fred & Friends, I can tell you that. We are strongly focused on original ideas, good value, and support of local retail. We really enjoy what we do, and thrive on the wonderful feedback our customers have been giving us.
So, what do
YOU think? I’d love to know where our customers think the boundaries of fair competition lie and how you feel about this David vs. Goliath story.
UPDATE: Go see what
Blue Ant Studio has compiled on Target's "inspired" product history. Very interesting dialog from everyone. Thanks.
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