We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer about their original and creative design work. is an award-winning creative designer, that makes our world a better place with their original works.
("") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work . Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
: Finding useful inspiration in the natural world to help address daily problems and frustrations.
: I wanted to create an attractive, versatile bicycle seat that would work with most bicycles and which would take some of the hardship out of bicycling in the rain.
: I am currently in the prototyping phase of the material. I have samples and a foam rubber seat prototype which I will wrap with the material to test. It is not the right color or visual surface pattern- this will come next.
: About six months in isolated sections of time. For a few years I have studied the relationship of biological scientific discovery and its application in product design, especially lotus leaves which have been widely studies in academia for their water repellent abilities. Only more recently has manufacturing technology advanced to recreate natural phenomenon.
: In many respects, this was an effort to prove the concept that biological knowledge can be adapted to daily design problems- bioinspiration and biomimetics is not just academic research and science fiction.
: Once I have reached the next stage of development I will work with my partners to develop a crowd funding campaign to make it available to the market place. alternatively, I would license it to a bicycle products manufacturer.
: I believe it fell into the "unexpected design" category because it came from an experimental type of product develop method. The type of material that enables the design could be applied to many other consumer products and could be the basic for a brand.
: Not really, except perhaps Brooks cycle seats, which I greatly admire. The main influence came from
: Anyone who cycles daily, where it also rains a lot- Portland, Oregon, USA and London are two prime examples.
: The design has a specific story, not based on styling or other criteria.
: Since the seat concept was inspired by Lotus leaves I looked for a name relating to leaves- Latin is often a good source of names in my experience. Folium means 'leaf' in Latin.
: Foam modeling, sketching, CNC machining, along with Rhino, Keyshot and Photoshop.
: That the seat repels water and channels it away.
: I collaborated with a company in Spencer, Massachusetts, USA to develop the water repellent material.
: The roll-to-roll technology micro-engraved bioinspired seat material is the key.
: From a problem definition side, I observed and photographed bicyclists struggling with rain settling on their bicycle seats or even soaking in. I have had this experience myself many times. I photographed wet bicycle seats in the USA, Europe and Asia with after rain showers. I photographed over 50 bicycle seats that used cheap plastic grocery bags or covers to keep the seats dry. In many cities in the USA covers would likely be stolen.
: It took several iterations and discussions to begin developing the bike seat material. It is ongoing.
: I really believe in some ways this concept is unique and one these "why didn't anyone think of this before" kinds of designs. Whether it would win or not, it would introduce the idea to the public and through jurors. It had already won an award prior so I thought it would have a chance.
: It is always a learning experience to get honest feedback from peers and other designers. As designers, we cannot always predict everything or be right all the time. A reality check from the early jury responses was very helpful both in terms of the communication of the concept to the quality of the images.
: Nothing else I can think of. Thank you for the opportunity.
