incuTANK: Sharing ideas and innovation.

Today we are glad to present Priscilla Barton of Priscillab.com for our second posting in the “interview with an innovator” series. You may remember when back in Feb. when we mentioned the OXO MagTack, well guess what….Priscilla designed them! Here is a short interview between me (Thianh) and Priscilla….enjoy!

Thianh: To begin, do you mind giving us a bit of background? Tell us a little about yourself.

Priscilla: I’m Priscilla Barton. I am an industrial and/or product designer. I started out in materials engineering because I was strong in math and science throughout school, but when I realized that it took more than that to enjoy engineering, I directed myself on the design path.

Sounds like you knew what you wanted and went for it! Was it the same for the MagTack idea? How did you come up with the idea, was it an accident?

When I was in my first year of design school, we had to do hundreds of pages of drawings. And we had to post them on the walls of the school for critiques. Art students come up with all sorts of convoluted ways to mount their work on the walls, but most of those ways are pretty destructive. Once you poke a hole in a drawing, if you try to repost it, the hole will get bigger or you will just make another hole. We tried tape and magnets….it was all a hassle. And it was a faux pas if while you were in critique, your drawing fell off the wall. So, as I was pinning up my drawings one day into drywall that had been patched and repatched, my fingers were getting all red and indented and I thought out loud “why hasn’t someone designed a better tack?”

At that point, since I was new to design, I didn’t do anything about it for 3 years. Around the time I was graduating, a school instructor asked me to enter a design competition. I had limited time and resources at that point because I was working already and I was trying to finish up my thesis. So, I remembered the tack I had thought of redesigning and I just decided that this would be my design entry.

At first, I thought I was just going to make it more ergonomic, but after thinking about the problem of holes in corners and the ones I make when I pin up post cards or pictures, I realized that I could bring more to the table than that. I also wanted something that looked more permanent and presentable than these little clear or silver commodity pins. When I started thinking of ways that this pin could ‘hold’ the paper in place, a short design exploration led to the idea of using magnets.

Very neat! Its amazing how an idea from three years prior came to mind. After coming up with the idea, what steps were needed to get it into production? How long did that process take?

I drew them up, modeled them in 3D, had someone make them for me, and submitted it to the design contest. I didn’t win it, but I had a chance to speak with one of the judges, who prodded me to try to license them to someone. I had a handful of samples, so I started emailing companies that I thought might be interested. I probably spoke with or contacted 10 companies or more and some of them told me they were interested so I waited and waited and called them every month to get in touch but they never did anything with it. So, I wasted probably a year or more waiting for different companies that expressed interest.

Wow, sounds like a trying time and a difficult process. In the end how did OXO find your invention?

When I designed it, I was thinking of the aesthetic that they have with their magnetic clips and their other colorful products that use black santoprene rubber. I had thought of contacting them, but an old boss discouraged me from it, telling me that they were a kitchen products company, not an office products company. In spite of that, I went on their website, emailed their general email, and was put in touch with someone who could evaluate the idea. They took about a month to get back to me to say they were interested, but the project was set back because their lawyers had found a registered patent that included an embodiment of a product that mechanically was doing the same thing as the Magtack. So, it basically was over until I decided I could make it even better by having the two pieces mate together when you are storing it - the pin gets inserted into the other half and it becomes a protective cap for the pin. This has the added bonus of being a lot safer to carry around than a normal tack. I often carried loose tacks in my bag so that I could post drawings up, and I often ended up hurting myself reaching into the black abyss of my backpack in search of tacks. When I presented it to OXO, they were delighted and they decided to take on the product.

Success! As we know the rest is MagTack history from there What other inventions are you most proud of?

Well, I am working on a few more and we will see what they lead to. I have lots of ideas so the challenge with me is taking on the right amount of work.

My senior thesis project which was a messaging drinking glass was a pretty fun project. I got a lot of emails from people trying to buy them. Unfortunately, it is a very complicated product, so although a few people here and there said that they were interested, it never panned out. What with the iPhone, my Connection Glass is less of a dream than it was back then. It is very attainable, but it would take quite a lot of investment to undertake that project.

I’m on your site right now…those are very slick glasses! From the looks of your website, you have experimented with everything from shoes, glasses to backpacks. Do you tend to focus on certain things or do you find a problem then want to solve it?

I tend to find a problem and then want to solve it. I currently work fulltime designing bags, so I do have an affinity for the soft goods/sewn products world, BUT bags can only do so much for you. They carry things. I sometimes want to design the things that they carry.

At incubaker we are inspired by each other and observations that we share with each other on our tumble log, “Let the Juices Flow” Where do find you get most of your inspiration?

Mostly, the problems that I find are just things that come up in daily life. Ways to do things easier and more efficient, ways to make things look nicer. Lately I have been having ideas for services rather than products. Here’s a free idea - a company that sells insurance for sunglasses. How many pairs of expensive sunglasses have you lost? Would you pay 5 bucks a month or pay a $30 premium to get your Prada shades that you dropped in the lake back? If it has been done for cellphones, it makes sense to do it for sunglasses. But I think friends are finding holes in my argument. They say that renters insurance can cover your sunglasses. But how many people out there have renters’ insurance?

Haha thanks for the free idea! Does commercial success with MagTack allow you the leeway to experiment and take more risks?

Uh, hopefully. It’s too early to tell, but to be honest, I’ll only do well if Magtacks sell like Coca-Cola. It’s just a bonus if it does well and having that mindset helps me to not get anxious. What with your investing and watching stocks, you’re probably better off than I am or will be.

Your too humble! At Incubaker we came up with an idea for a luggage seat - What’s your first reaction!?

Well, have you seen Zuca bags?

Having the picture of the luggage and the picture of the seat helps me to understand the two objects that you would like to combine. That other luggage product that attempts to do this is interesting - it seems that their approach is just to make the luggage strong enough to bear the weight of an average person. It doesn’t look that stable or comfortable. I have often sat on those old molded Samsonite luggages when they are laid on the ground horizontally - i.e. when you are cramming old clothes into it and you have to sit on it to get it to close? And then you are so tired out that you sit there for a while and rest. I would probably either want to sit in a normal lounge chair at the airport OR I would sit on my luggage in the way I just described. There are a lot of constraints with luggage because the ultimate requirement is that it needs to fit in the overhead bin and within the carryon dimensions set forth. The carryon dimensions are narrow in the depth such that it would probably not be a comfortable seat. I guess if you sat on it like you were riding a horse, i.e. at McDonalds or KMart, that might be more stable.

But, a brief exploration with drawings may help you to assess whether or not is a good idea. I have designed luggage before and it is not cheap. This may be one barrier to entry - maybe others have tried it and it ended up being so expensive and not that alluring that consumers weren’t willing to pay extra for it.

Nice feedback, thanks! How did you find out about Incubaker anyway? Do you have a favorite posting?

Googling and finding your posting on Magtacks. I liked the brush and rinse toothbrush. I just hope it wouldn’t squirt water on my clothes or face if I didn’t have the perfect angle.

Yea we are still trying to get our hands on a prototype toothbrush…Any last words of advice for other innovators?

I think that if you have ideas, it behooves you to know how to build things or draw them - paper or computer, it doesn’t matter.

Not everyone will like your idea, but it is important to recognize when an idea doesn’t jibe well with your target consumer. This doesn’t mean quit while you’re ahead, but maybe rethinking things will get you to an even better idea.

Thanks for the words of wisdom and inspiring interview Priscilla! Looking forward to seeing more of your designs