Think about this, what if everyone that had a new or improved product concept was able to bring their idea to life. Sure you would have a lot of bad ideas, but there would probably be a few great ideas too, and what if there was a way to let those great ideas rise to the top and find a way to make it to market. You might be asking, what currently prevents someone from introducing their revolutionary product idea to the world? Mainly, cost. Two new services (and I imagine many more will be launching soon) have been created to help alleviate that most difficult aspect of product development, funding. Kickstarter and Quirky provide a service that generates funding for product concepts and a lot more. Traditionally someone with a new product concept would have to invest their own money (or investor’s) into the development process but also have a large investment for the first production. These services differ in their approach but they both allow the inventor to  reach a consumer base and generate capital before manufacturing molds are even made. This type of freedom to create will hopefully lead to quicker advancements in products, and new and interesting niche products.

Kickstarter
Kickstarter is the more risky option but in the long run leaves the inventor with the most control and has a greater potential for profit. To get an idea funded the inventor need only describe their product concept, however, the better the description (presentation) the more likely it is to get funding. Some of the most successful presentations are the ones where a product is presented with a prototype, branding, eye-catching images, copy, and video. However, a high quality presentation will take some initial investment. Next the inventor sets a funding goal and a time frame in which to meet that goal. Visitors to the website can then pledge an amount of money toward the project. Generally the pledge will act as a prepayment or partial payment for the product once it reaches production. If the funding goal is not reached, no one is charged and the inventor can either make adjustments and relaunch or abandon the project. If a well presented and well thought out concept fails to find an audience, the loss is relatively small compared to a product that is produced and fails to find an audience. However, if it is successful and the funding is met (you can exceed your funding goal as well) then the money can be used to build tools and begin production. Whats more is Kickstarter allows the future users of the product to give feedback during the development stage. Once everything is said and done the inventor retains all intellectual property and rights to the product and all the profits, Kickstarter receives a small percentage of the initial funding goal for helping launch the product.

Quirky
Quirky is a social based product launching service that allows its user group to vote on new product concepts for production. The key difference between Quirky and Kickstarter is that Quirky develops the products with their internal design and engineering team based on community selection and sells them through the website. Once a product is selected and eventually produced the profits are shared with the Quirky community with a larger share going to the person who submitted the idea. Quirky is probably the least risky way to get an idea out there, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. If the idea does not resonate with the Quirky community it might not get selected for production. The person with the product concept cannot build a company based on the sales of the product, and only has influence over things like naming and branding and not final say. However, Quirky takes full risk on product development, funding for production, and marketing. If someone wants to get involved with producing products or get their idea out there with an investment no greater than a lunch out, then Quirky is the way to go.

Conclusion
The most interesting aspect of these new services is that the hurdles to getting a great idea to market are a lot smaller than they used to be. Combine this new method of funding with the rise of easy and affordable rapid prototyping and CAD software (look for more on that in a later post) and almost anyone can get their ideas out there. There will still be a plethora of bad ideas, but in theory only the great ones get funded. So you have no excuses, give that great idea you have filed away in the deep recesses of your memory a chance at success, after all you have nothing (almost nothing) to lose.

Last weekend our Industrial designers participated in Global Service Jam 2011, an event where teams around the world got together and designed a service for this year’s theme “(Super) Heroes”. The Lawrence Kansas group was a great mix of user experience designers, interface designers and industrial designers. The results of their labors can be found here.

Our designers have long preached that making products is only part of good product development. “Businesses that look at their products as part of a service are the ones that are striving today. Participating in the Global Service Jam was a great design exercise with other designers who understand the important of service not only to the consumers but the community as a whole,” says Marche Industrial Designer Chris Ostrander.

“Understanding Service Design is becoming a vital part of any Design and engineering firm. If you take a look at some of the best product designs in the market you will most likely find a great service supporting it. The ipod is nothing without itunes, and likewise with the Kindle and Amazon Books. Working with a mult-disciplinary group of designers was a great opportunity for us to improve our skills in Service design,” says Derick Schweppe, Czar of Innovation at Marche Design.

Although the tablet or slate computer concept has been around for several decades (in fact Apple developed concepts for a tablet in the 80s) it wasn’t until the introduction of the iPad that the general public started to take notice.

At Marche we take time to evaluate emerging markets, and after looking at the burgeoning tablet sector we felt there was potential for a type of tablet that was being ignored by bigger players such as Apple, Samsung, and Motorola. That niche is the tablet with a pen. Steve Jobs famously dismissed the pen when the ipad debuted in 2010, but we feel like it deserves another chance.

Why is the pen worth considering? The pen is still one of the best ways to convey information, whether it be jotting a quick note or drawing a diagram, or sketching an invention. Imagine making a page full of notes with quick diagrams and call-outs with a keyboard. Sketches interspersed with notes is the type of stuff you find in a designer’s sketchbook, or a writer’s journal, or an engineer’s notebook. The current crop of tablets cannot fulfill this role because they lack the necessary software, and they lack the hardware to do so.

The software aspect is easily overcome, developers need only to create software that is intended to replace the trusty notebook. The Hardware, however, is a bigger problem. The ipod and ipad uses a capacitive touch screen that has become the standard for a quality experience. The reason is because it is far superior to the old resistive screens found on ATMs and windows phones of the past. Resistive screens often irritated users because they didn’t always work very well and often took multiple presses to register an input. In contrast the new iphone and ipad screens seem magical. The drawback to these new screens is that they only work with fingers (and other conductive materials) and do not work with smaller items such as pen tips. However, there is another type of technology that the majority of the public had never interacted with, the active digitizer. The active digitizer is all about the pen.

This leads me to the concept that we developed. In order to highlight the possibilities of a pen based tablet we chose a concept branded by the leading manufacturer in active digitizers, Wacom. Wacom has been producing active digitizers since the early 1980s and is highly regarded for quality. The active digitizer allows the user to rest their palm on the screen and draw normally, the palm doesn’t interfere because it is based on Radio Frequency technology. This form of input is also very precise allowing artists, designers, and architects to create intricate work. Not only does it effectively replace drawing and writing with traditional media, it adds additional features such as pressure sensitivity (the harder you press the bolder the line).

Why all this talk about technology? In order to wipe the slate clean and focus on the positive aspects of the pen input, we felt it was necessary to review the current state of touchscreen technologies. In order to create a piece of hardware that would be a true replacement for the notebook, we had to understand what would and wouldn’t work. The quality of the input would be one of the biggest indicators of a good experience for the user.

For the Tablet to be a true notebook experience it would also need to be lightweight, thin and be capable of working all day. Hardware in today’s full featured notebooks would be too heavy, cumbersome, and power hungry. However, utilizing hardware designed for mobile devices and for media based tablets would be feasible. Since this concept was primarily focused on hardware we decided that utilizing an OS with an open market system would allow leading software developers for the creative fields such as Adobe and Autodesk to easily produce software for the tablet. Therefore the Android OS was chosen for the concept.

We have designed a concept that has a highly precise input for pen, but what about all the useful features of capacitive touch like gesturing (think pinch to zoom) that would be needed in the Android OS? Capacitive touch and active digitizers aren’t mutually exclusive in fact wacom already provides a dual digitizer for Windows based tablets, that deactivates the touch when the pen is being used.

So now we have a tablet that can truly be called a notebook and sketchbook replacement, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could utilize that exact pen input and touch interface with your fully powered desktop or laptop running photoshop or other high end creative software? Desktop mirroring over wifi is already a possibility in Android, and a bluetooth connection is available in some of wacom’s products. Combine the two and you have a device that not only allows you to sketch and write on the go, but also allows you to work in conjunction with your full featured computer and software.

We believe that this concept would provide a great benefit to artists, designers and journal writers.

Our Digital Surveillance System (DSS) is a completely wireless surveillance solution. DSS development posed engineering challenges, including working under the 2.4Ghz wireless structure and working with Lithium Ion battery technology.

An electronic product design challenge with many consumer electronics is the inclusion of features because technology makes it possible. Through research, Marche’s designers and engineers choose only features which users could benefit from. Such features include two-way communication from the control unit to the cameras, dedicated buttons for up to eight cameras, LED notification when a camera detects motion and LED night vision.

Even a company like Marche Design with 20 years of product development knows its knowledge is extremely limited. We always ask “what is the most efficient way to prototype and test an idea for validation.” It is amazing how often the initial idea just can’t be validated as a legitimate product, but a similar idea derived from the prototyping and testing ended up being a hit.

Many new inventors are excited that their new product idea is going to make them rich and, of course, who wouldn’t be. However, there are numerous steps that must be done prior to evaluating a new product idea for market potential. A frightening 70% of new product ideas never make it into the market; a category that many seem to fall into. Yet, at Marche Design, we have a long history dating back to 1991 proving we know what it takes to turn your new product idea into a success.

We are a full service new product idea company. We can assist your new product ideas from beginning market research, project management, concept ideation, branding, engineering, prototyping, manufacturing and distribution. Whew, sounds like a lot, we know but we are good at bringing new product ideas to life.

No matter what development stage your new product idea is in, we can assist you to make it reality.

Happy ideation.

The Flare is currently rated at 4.5 stars, and customers are praising the design,
“These flares are awesome! They are much brighter than I expected- even visible in daylight. They are absolutely essential in an emergency situation. I keep them in the trunk with the spare tire. I will be getting one just to keep in each of our 3 vehicles”

view the demo video:

After some testing we came to the conclusion that the original design’s weather station interface was complicated and difficult to quickly gleam information about the weather outside. Therefore creating an interface that was able to be read quickly while getting ready for the day was a priority. We also realized an opportunity to make a more useful mirror and better storage for items necessary for shaving.

The original product looked like a gadget, it felt like a gadget. Redesigning the product to fit well in a bathroom environment was essential. The new design feels at home next to chrome, tile and porcelain.

Throughout the engineering and design process we evaluated solutions that were aesthetic, strong, and capable of being manufactured.

In the end we developed a solution that fulfilled the needs of the target user and satisfied our client.

Fog-Free Mirror + Weather Station