Size Does Matter
If one believes that one of the main goals of design is to create products that will sell, then design won’t always be about what’s most beautiful – sometimes it’s small, practical details that give the item it’s sales advantage. One of my biggest design lessons occurred at Omni Products International, a manufacturer and supplier of outdoor and patio furniture. We had created a fabulous design that we thought would be perfect for a major mass market chain. The company president agreed it was great, but told me to have it made half an inch smaller. Intrigued, I asked him why, what effect could such a small change have? By making it just a half inch smaller the box would fit onto the store’s shelves and in the shopping carts, so anyone who wanted to buy it could just take it themselves – without having to hunt down a store employee to see if any product was available somewhere in the back storage area and then carry it to the checkout and on to the customer’s car!! How many sales are lost because an employee can’t be found, the item can’t be located in the stocking area, or it took so long to find it the customer became impatient and walked away?
Nowadays it’s common practice to design packaging to fit shelving and get the most product into the least amount of space, but at the time this was truly innovative. Where else can small design tweaks make a big difference?
