1. New ideas

Use two or more of these words to make six new design inventions. The first letter of each idea is given to help you. Then skim-read the article to check your answers.

magnetic sticky solar-powered camera tidier

clock wastepaper robotic transparent furniture

garden web mirrors cable bin

glowing vague memos bathroom

 

2. Synonyms

Skim the article again to find words that mean (almost) the same as:

1. boring / unexciting – _______________

2. rule / idea – _______________

3. original – _______________

4. factory-made in large numbers – _______________

5. changes – _______________

6. plan / project – _______________

7. to fail – _______________

8. payment – _______________

9. inexact / indeterminate – _______________

10. leads / wires – _______________

11. shows – _______________

12. normal / ordinary – _______________

13. no good / useless – _______________

 

The future of design? 

 

Ian Sample, science correspondent

November 24, 2007

A Japanese innovator wants to change the face of shopping and replace mass-produced goods with people-power ideas

If Kohei Nishiyama succeeds, he will be financially independent by the age of 40, living as an inventor and being woken each morning by his robot dog. The 37-year-old Tokyo-based designer and founder of Elephant Design has a dream, one he hopes will change the face of British shopping.

He wants to empty the shelves of dreary, mass-marketed and mass-produced objects and replace them with products that we - the people - have helped to develop. Nishiyama calls his idea ‘Design to Order’ and the principle is simple. Anyone with a unique idea, for anything from a robotic web camera to a magnetic bathroom mirror, posts an image and description on his website. There, people can log on to suggest alterations and improvements to the design. If enough people then vote for the product, he makes a deal with a manufacturer and the product is made.

“There are so many mass-produced products making it on to the shelves because that’s how large companies do things. Our idea is to give people what they want by involving anyone of any age or nationality who has a good idea, early on in the process,” says Nishiyama.

The scheme has been running in Japan for a few years, and has taken off among designers who use it to present their ideas instead of committing to something that may flop. The company has recently set up a test site with retailer Muji to help develop products for its stores. One idea, for transparent sticky memos, was suggested by a 21-year-old student and will be marketed next month. She will get royalties from every pack sold.

Ahead of the formal UK launch next year, Nishiyama has appointed London-based designers The Division as its first British consultancy. The company has placed three designs on Nishiyama’s website: a clock that is vague about the time, a set of solar-powered, glowing garden furniture, and a wastepaper bin that tidies ugly cables around work desks.

David Tonge, founder of The Division, said: “We wanted a relaxed clock for the home, so the hour hand is on the outside, and like a sundial it’s fairly vague. But in the centre, it displays minutes in a digital form so you can use it if you’re doing something like cooking pasta for 13 minutes.”

The idea for the garden furniture came after Tonge was fed-up with the over-designed options he found in shops, while the cable tidier is a standard paper bin fitted with a powerblock and cable storage compartments.

Any item on the site that gets 1,000 votes is put forward for manufacture. As of yesterday, Tonge’s clock had received 39 votes, the cable tidier 22 votes and the garden furniture nine. The leading product on the site, with 235 votes, is a bathroom mirror that is also a whiteboard. The designers hope the buyers will be busy professionals, who can write appointments and thoughts on it, attach memos like fridge magnets, and see them as they brush their teeth in the morning.

For now the test site is only free to designers, but Nishiyama says he will take ideas from other people, if there are at least ten people who support an idea. “Because it’s a new thing and it’s experimental, a lot of people are posting ideas and, it has to be said, some of them are rubbish,” says Tonge. “But it can be surprising. There are definitely people out there, who are not designers, who have some good, interesting ideas, and some of those may end up in the shops.”

 

COMPREHENSION CHECK 

3. Are these sentences true or false according to the article?

Correct any sentences that are false.

1. Kohei Nishiyama comes from Japan but lives in London. true / false

2. Kohei Nishiyama is the founder of a new design company. true / false

3. He doesn’t like mass-marketed products. true / false

4. Elephant Design offers young designers the chance to present their ideas. true / false

5. Kohei Nishiyama wants to move the company base to the UK. true / false

6. A design needs 1000 votes before it can be produced. true / false

7. Currently the most popular product is the vague clock. true / false

8. There are no plans to market any new ideas yet. true / false 

 

4. Vocabulary: Pronunciation

Pair these words from the article according to their stress-patterns.

e.g. replace + unique both have the stress-pattern 

consultancy experimental financially product

imagination ambitious scheme cable

alterations designer vague independent