Spontaneous Collaboration

Spontaneous Collaboration

by | Sep 5, 2014 | Company Insights

Spontaneous Collaboration

Fredricks Design has built a business on the ability to collaborate around solving product development challenges. We regularly do this using internal brainstorm sessions and structured workshops involving participants from clients’ teams and manufacturing resources. We’ve recognized the benefit of putting key people together and the resulting synergy. The value of these “formal” gatherings is clearly documented with stacks of concept sketches and lists of opportunities to explore further.

But sometimes collaboration occurs more organically, is unscheduled and unstructured and is initiated around a very specific task or problem. Often this spontaneous collaboration occurs when someone is trying to work outside of their skillset or in unfamiliar territory. Sometimes an idea just won’t “click,” but they feel the drive to push-on until a solution is achieved. (more…)

A Kindergarten Mindset

A Kindergarten Mindset

by | Jul 17, 2014 | Company Insights

Some of our best concepts sprout when we are in a kindergarten mindset.

Our Clients come to us with wildly diverse challenges. Sometimes the problems are well defined and other times we are working to define the end users’ needs. In either case (or anything in between), an open mind and free thinking are keys to effectively exploring new ideas. Often finding the best solutions to the biggest challenges is achieved by an unconventional team and a change of scenery. That’s where we come in…

For years, Fredricks has understood the value in approaching daunting problems with an agile and open mindset; great concepts often grow from unexpected ideas. Our Workshops are designed to provide Clients with a chance to escape from the day-to-day operations and distractions of the office: the freedom and tools to generate these unexpected ideas. (more…)

Indiana Furniture + Fredricks Case Study

Indiana Furniture + Fredricks Case Study

by | May 6, 2014 | Case Studies, Furniture Design

We partnered with Indiana Furniture in Q4 2012 to develop Felix, a new offering to expand their seating line.

Our case study tells the story of our collaborative development from early exploration of the problem statement, design brief development, ideation, concept development, and production release.

We leveraged our complementary capabilities to accelerate the development of a new product to raise the bar for Indiana Furniture in the seating category. Felix is the first offering in a series of seating products based on intelligent product planning and execution of our combined talents.

Please check out the chair development case study and contact us to discuss your future product challenges. Thanks!