Joseph Mango, product designer, is hunched over a set of drawings, gripping a stubby pencil. Swiftly, he makes a few deft strokes and leans back. ”There,” he says, with evident satisfaction. ”That should solve the problem.”
Sitting next to him, looking noncommittal, is his client, who represents a company that manufactures window blinds. Some weeks before, he had come to the design firm of Banka Mango with the request for a design of a window-blind cutter for retailers–something that would allow them to custom-fit metal blinds the way they already do window shades. The way the manufacturer saw it, a cutter would help increase sales; customers would never have to be turned away because stores didn`t have a certain size in stock.
Until this point, there has been no such thing as a window-blind cutter. Now, spread out in front of Joe Mango are the rudiments of one: a set of line drawings and a rough, plywood model of a cutting mechanism.
Still, there`s a long way to go, and the manufacturer`s rep has several doubts. One of them is that the finished product will not be attractive in a store setting; he says it looks too much like ”a piece of machinery.” It is in response to this concern that Mango quickly sketches in a metal housing. Not only will the housing cover an offending lever mechanism, but Mango opportunistically notes that its flat surface is the logical place to put easy-to-read operating instructions.
The client nods. Point for Mango.
In truth, the peppery Mango has scored a number of points in his 40-plus years as a product designer. He and his 45-member firm have been responsible for thousands of consumer items over the years. Among other things, they have literally reinvented the wheel (a blow-molded, hollow plastic variation now used extensively on lawn mowers and other garden equipment) and invented a superior-fastening safety pin (which has no chance of ever being produced because the only manufacturer in the industry is perfectly happy with what it already has).
The firm`s ”firsts” have included helping develop the first countertop microwave oven, the first cabinet-style washing machine, the first American-manufactured snowmobile, the first home-use radial-arm saw and the first lightweight electric broom.
Of course, there have been failures, too. Banka Mango was the first to come up with movable under-the-counter appliances, but the scheme failed when banks wouldn`t finance them by including them in home mortgages, whereas they would include built-in units. Another disaster was acounterclockwise-rotating garden tiller that worked six times better than a competing clockwise model. But the inferior model won out in the marketplace when the competitor lowered its financing charges to a point the maker of the better tiller couldn`t match. And sitting unwanted, at least for the time being, are plans for a small ”entertainment” refrigerator, designed as a piece of living room furniture where yuppies can store their brie, white wine and delicatessen items.
For the most part, product designing is an anonymous, low-profile business, with most of the manufacturers who rely on industrial design firms reluctant to admit that their creations are not entirely their own. The profession generally traces its origins to the late 1920s, encouraged by advertising agencies that advised their clients to start dressing up their often homely products to make them more saleable.
Most of the early product designers were stage designers or window dressers, and product design had more to do with styling and panache than with mechanics or the ease with which an item could be used. One of the most famous and flamboyant of the early stylists was Raymond Loewy, who died in July at age 92. Loewy began his career as a fashion illustrator and went on to design hundreds of products, using the same sleek lines in everything from toothbrushes to locomotives, and ball point pens to Studebaker cars.
Mango, now 63, graduated from college as an engineer, with a number of art courses under his belt as well. He then entered the Navy, where he had his first practical design experience–fashioning dummies of heads that sat in the cockpits of experimental drone aircraft so that potential spies on the ground would think they were piloted planes. When the war ended, he joined Banka Mango`s predecessor firm as an engineer.
”No one back then really knew what an industrial designer was,” he says, but the economic boom that followed the war put a new emphasis on pleasing the consumer.
W. Daniel Wefler, executive director of the year-old Association of Professional Design Firms, estimates there are only 500 to 600 independent industrial design firms today. ”Most companies have brought the design function in-house,” he says. ”They turn to outsiders when they want something fresh or have some project they feel they`re not capable of handling alone.”
Most design firms are small, with the average firm employing only four designers. With about 25 designer-engineers, Banka Mango ranks as one of the nation`s largest. The firm occupies unpretentious quarters in Chicago`s Merchandise Mart. Its main feature is a large room crowded with draftsmen`s desks. On this particular day, scattered about the room are numerous drawings; some are reverse blueprint line drawings, others are full-color renditions of appliances, tools and lawn and garden equipment. One designer is busy sculpting a cardboard model of a drinking fountain.
”It`s easy to explain why there aren`t more large firms,” Mango says.
”It`s egos. Designers by nature are extremely temperamental. It`s difficult to keep them working together in anything that resembles harmony. Treading the line between creativity and chaos can be very trying.”
But despite what Mango describes as the ”usual” personality clashes
(one longtime partner quit rather than deal on a day-to-day basis with one of the firm`s three other principals), Banka Mango has survived and prospered since Mango and Frank Banka (now retired) founded it in 1947. Last year, the firm posted record revenues of $2.4 million, not counting $500,000 brought in by an affiliated model shop. Clients include such well-known names as Emerson Electric, Allegheny, Litton, Singer and Coca-Cola.
”We`ve found through the years that the cosmetics and gimmickry have to be there to sell the product,” Mango says. ”But what we think we`ve brought to the design business is the developmental phase–conceiving and developing a product so that it not only provides service for the consumer, but so that the manufacturer can actually manufacture it. Engineering and aesthetics. That`s what this is about.”
Take something as seemingly simple as screwdrivers. Sears, Roebuck & Co. asked Banka Mango to see if it could develop the perfect set.
”We came up with nine different solutions, from a three-fingered screwdriver to a two-handed one,” recalls company president Emerson J.
”Purk” Purkapile. ”And actually, we found that, in terms of efficiency, the `perfect` screwdriver did exist in 1890. It had an extremely fat handle, which made it easier to hold and less tiring to grip for extended periods.
”But we ran into problems with that. For one, our testing showed that consumers just wouldn`t accept a screwdriver that looked so radically different. For another, the entire manufacturing process would have had to have been changed–screwdriver handles now are extruded from plastic and lathed. These would have had to have been molded. It was just too expensive.
”So what we did is what we do in any number of design situations–we compromised. We came up with a fatter handle that still could be extruded. It was what the machines could make, what the consumer would accept and what Sears could sell.”
Banka Mango sometimes ends up working against itself. Last year it designed a high-tech exercycle with a horizontal flywheel hidden in the base. The manufacturer liked it and had Banka Mango prepare a working model to exhibit at a sporting goods dealers` show, since there wasn`t time before the show to get the assembly lines rolling.
But a Japanese competitor saw it at the show. And a short time later it came out with its own exercycle, which looked very much like Banka Mango`s.
”The biggest difference was that ours was going to retail for $299, but theirs came out at $99,” Mango says. ”Now we`re faced with the problem of doing a spinoff of our original design. It`s not easy to copy yourself, and I really can`t say, at this point, how it`s going to come out.”
He has much better feelings about the ultimate success of a new line of hand-held power tools, which will be manufactured by Singer and sold by Sears. The line consists of a drill, a sabre saw and a sander. What makes these tools different is that they are modular, employing a single motor that can be switched from tool to tool.
The idea originated with Purkapile, who came across the statistic that the average power tool is used only 10 minutes a year but is designed to run 100 hours continuously, meaning that a lot of motors are being severely underutilized.
”Intuitively, it`s a good concept,” he says. ”Here are the three most popular home tools, and they generally cost about $39 each, or $120 for all three. With the modular tools, the same three tools can be sold for $85.
”But you never know. An executive of another tool manufacturer saw it and thought consumers would never go for it. He said if it worked, he`d quit the business.”
