Design and Brand Identity Transformation at LIXIL

Linkedin, July 18, 2022

A defined curve. A strong taper. A vivid splash of red. These design elements are just the most visible signs of a deep transformation at American Standard, a world-renowned bathroom and kitchen brand whose name dates back almost a century and a half.

These features are part of a new range of design references called Signature Elements. Harnessing the power of design, they create distinctive products to meet evolving consumer needs. This reference line defines the look of American Standard products and makes them instantly recognizable. It’s integral to a strategy that has strengthened and unified a brand whose products, and even logos, once varied by region.

The changes at American Standard are another big step forward in LIXIL’s revamp of its major brands. This move began with GROHE in Europe and continued with INAX in Asia. The entire business was reimagined to put consumer-focused design at its heart and sharpen the regional and cultural character of each brand.

“The collection of brands allows LIXIL to operate in different markets in a truly authentic way, which a purely global brand simply can’t do,” says Paul Flowers, Leader of LIXIL Global Design and Brand Identity. “The transformation of American Standard is part of our strategy to realign our portfolio and allow the brands to play different roles in each market.”

Building the Brands

Flowers first made signature elements a foundation for visual brand identity while leading the design team at GROHE. Touches such as these had long been used in the automotive and electronics industries but were revolutionary for a maker of kitchen and bath fittings.

The approach worked. Flowers joined GROHE in 2005, and the innovative products his team designed soon helped push annual sales to new heights. In 2011, GROHE won the prestigious Red Dot industry award for design team of the year, recognized for the Signature Elements that were an essential part of non-verbal brand communication and helped create a distinct design identity.

Flowers joined LIXIL when it acquired GROHE in 2014 and applied his experience to refresh its other brands. Product development was refocused on what consumers want and on devising solutions relevant to the way they live.

“It’s really nice when you’re showing the world something new that is based on an approach that has already proven to be successful,” Flowers says of the changes at American Standard. “It reduces the risks of innovation and allows you to demonstrate its value for consumers and the business.”

Leading with Design

LIXIL’s design-led approach begins with what it calls “presearch”: studying consumer trends and behavior to ensure its products are meaningful and add value to people’s lives. This process goes back to the beginning. Instead of presenting people with a range of options to pick from, like much standard research, the designers at LIXIL observe people to understand their unmet needs. These insights are then fed into every aspect of design and product development.

The process also involves defining the values for each brand and translating them into the reference objects, so they are reflected in every product. The American Standard Brand is defined as inviting, dependable and pioneering. These values took shape as the signature elements – pillow, taper and frame.

“Our signature elements incorporate semantic elements that communicate directly with consumers,” Flowers says. “Our responses to the world are coded: rounded shapes are inviting; a strong base looks dependable. There’s a lot of psychology behind this that we can draw on. This allows consumers to identify our products at first glance.”

As well as forming the visual essence of the brand, these elements have practical applications. The curved pillow shape, for example, makes fittings easier to clean. A tapered bathtub that is wider at the top than the bottom helps save water. The red color, when used on a button, signals that a product is on.

At LIXIL, Design Starts with Presearch

When LIXIL’s designers are developing new products, their work starts outside the studio. They attend design events and tradeshows to understand current and upcoming trends, and the social drivers behind them. A lot of their time also is spent talking with consumers about kitchen and bath products and observing how they interact with them.

This process of gathering ethnographic and market insights is what LIXIL calls “presearch”, and it’s the foundation of the company’s consumer-focused strategy across its water brands – American Standard, GROHE and INAX. It allows designers to understand not just the preferences and pain points that people can explain, but also the responses they can’t put into words.

“The purpose of ethnographic research is to listen to our users and observe the coping mechanisms and unmet needs they may not even be aware of,” says Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff, Leader, LIXIL Global Design, Americas. “It allows us to understand what consumers want even when they can’t articulate it. And that helps us design the products that will appeal to them tomorrow.”

For L’Hénaff’s New York-based team – the design force behind the American Standard brand – COVID-19 restrictions made this vital process more difficult. Unable to carry out research in people’s kitchens last year, the team installed cameras that allowed them to observe remotely how people prepare meals. They came away with a better appreciation of the gap between what people say is important to them and what they can achieve with the technology at their disposal. These insights are now shaping the development of new water technology products.

When it comes to anticipating trends in design and technology, New York is the ideal place to be, L’Hénaff says. The city is America’s branding and communications capital as well as an architectural hot spot. Tapping into its dynamic energy and creativity helps the LIXIL team stay ahead, creating authentic American products that consumers across the country will embrace for years to come.

“The user-centric approach at American Standard is the key to our longevity,” L’Hénaff says. “It will always resonate – today and 10 years from now, just like it did a century ago.”

Bridging the Gaps

With multiple industry-leading water brands in global markets, LIXIL recognizes the importance of ensuring that each is culturally rooted in its home market and meets the needs of consumers in that region. For this reason, the presearch phase includes ethnographic research that contributes to a strong regional identity and makes each brand distinct from the others.

But being part of the wider LIXIL organization means synergies and efficiencies can be created between the distinct regional brands, too. This allows them to leverage technological platforms that are customized through brand and design lenses to make them relevant in each market. A good example is GROHE’s award-winning SmartControl line of shower systems and faucets – thoroughly European designs incorporating technology from INAX in Japan.

The goal of cultural relevance is facilitated by having eight major in-house design studios located in diverse urban centers, including London, New York, Tokyo, Düsseldorf, and Singapore. These cities are also architectural hubs, making it easier for LIXIL’s designers to stay on top of industry trends and stay in touch with clients.

Having an in-house design team is also critical to making LIXIL’s consumer-centric approach work. Its 120 designers work side by side every day with the company’s engineers and researchers, the marketing team, and even the factories that make its products.

“Because we’re so well plugged into the organization, we can call upon the expertise of thousands of people across the company,” Flowers says. “Our setup is quite unique in that sense.”

Relevant Innovation

The design team at the heart of LIXIL provides what Flowers calls an “objective barometer” that ensures the organization is focused on consumers and evolves along with them, staying relevant and adding value over the long term. The key is to marry design and brand to create immediately recognizable products that set LIXIL apart and inspire lasting consumer loyalty.

LIXIL’s designers are its insights people who can visualize an idea and make it tangible – and help the rest of the organization understand it. By always looking through the consumer’s eyes, the design team ensures that LIXIL never stops innovating. The American Standard reference line is the latest result of this approach.

“True innovation is when we surprise and delight consumers and we do it in a relevant way,” Flowers says. “More than one billion people use one of our products every single day. That’s a huge privilege and a huge responsibility. If each of our designs can make the world – and people’s daily routine – a little better, we can really make a significant impact.”

>> Follow LIXIL Global Design on Instagram

LIXIL & ICFF | WantedDesign 2023, New York City

Our LIXIL Design team has been busy the last few weeks, with two key events here in New York.
 
On May 16th to 19th, LIXIL sponsored the WantedDesign 2023 Schools Workshop, where seven schools from four countries brought students together to collaborate and address water cleanliness and accessibility in a public space. I was proud to return to this workshop as a judge and ambassador for LIXIL, and I’m always grateful for the opportunity to mentor the next generation of industrial designers. 
 
Earlier last week we attended the ICFF’s Emerging Designer event, which is sponsored by @American Standard. Six designers introduced innovative products in the furniture, lighting & accessory categories, pushing the boundary for what’s possible with current tools and technology. I’m so inspired by the creativity and ingenuity that we saw at this showcase, and can not wait to see these ideas come to fruition. 
 
Our partnership with WantedDesign allows us to connect with emerging talents and lets us get a first look at exciting new ideas and products, just as we develop more sustainable practices in our building and designing processes.
 
#Design #Innovation #ICFF # #designtrade #designfair #tradeshow#productdesign #interiordesign #designtalks

Designing for a Water Conscious World

Last month, LIXIL Global Design met with Amy Devers of Clever at our NJ headquarters. We discussed the challenges we face and opportunities we have as a manufacturer of Kitchen & Bath products in a world where water is becoming a precious resource.

LIXIL Global Design Americas wins big in 2022/23!

The LIXIL Global Design Americas team won a total of 25 international design awards in over the past 12 months, including 15 German Design Awards, 2 IDEA Awards (US), 3 iF and 3 Red Dot Design Awards (Germany) and 2 G-Mark Awards (Japan.)

Congratulations to all involved!

4 Best Practices to Advance Inclusive and Sustainable Design in Physical Spaces

By Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff for I&S magazine, Nov. 9, 2022

Design professionals can accelerate the progression of inclusive design, water conservation and sustainability by expanding the function and accessibility in the products they design, develop and specify.

Inclusive design for physical spaces is often left out of the mainstream conversation regarding diversity and inclusion initiatives. The prevailing perception and understanding of “inclusive design” lacks dimensionality and is often considered an easily achievable and universal process. However, it requires much more than a simple blanket application and involves more than checking all surface-level boxes. 

Before I dive into best practices around inclusive design for physical spaces, it is important to define precisely what is meant by the term and the historical context through which it has evolved. Inclusive design is the process foundational to ensuring the built environment is accessible and accommodating to all individuals regardless of demographic. It cultivates a sense of community and in organizational contexts guides strategy, operations, core values and vision. In the 2010s, businesses recognized more profoundly the benefits of a diverse workforce and began in earnest expanding efforts to go beyond gender equality. Since then, the scope of design research has widened to include more diversity in sample sizes, leading to more comprehensive data collection. With a broader set of data, designers are now more aware of integrating inclusive design in projects and equipping spaces with appliances that meet specific requirements and standards. 

Today, there is a significant opportunity to incorporate inclusive design in both existing structures and new developments. To that effect, I have outlined below four best practices and considerations for architects and designers as they look to expand function and accessibility in the products they design, develop and specify. 

1. Be tactful and considerate when incorporating technology into design. 

Technology plays a significant role in advancing accessibility and inclusive design. Technology is ubiquitous, and therefore should be used judiciously based on design and functionality needs; its applications, especially in the realm of inclusive design, cannot be addressed with a “one-size-fits-all” approach. The scale at which one incorporates technology should depend on the audience and environment. 

For example, designers and manufacturers produced touchless products and features during the initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic to optimize hygiene and minimize the spread of germs in public spaces, especially public restrooms. This rapid shift then exposed the contrast between consumer needs in public spaces versus private homes. Concerns over safety are not as prevalent inside the home; the integration of technology in the home is more about convenience. As such, technological implementation requires careful consideration based on a number of factors, including the environment and demographic for which one is designing.

2. Architects and designers have a critical role to play in water conservation. 

Sustainability and inclusive design go hand-in-hand in today’s global landscape. Governments around the world have worked with the private sector to update building codes and align green building incentives to collectively advance water conservation and sustainability goals. However, to carry out these goals, the implementation lies in the hands of the individuals designing and developing buildings. 

Throughout a design project, designers, builders and architects have the ability to integrate water conservation into all phases from design to construction. For instance, at LIXIL, we are developing toilets that use significantly less water. The process has involved looking at pain points in the design of the toilet and identifying ways to improve water conservation without compromising user experience and accessibility. Striking this balance may seem daunting, but it is certainly possible, and it is where the future of inclusive design is headed. 

3. Consider the term “inclusive” in its broadest sense. 

LIXIL's product brand American Standard offers an accessible walk-in bathtub design, providing a safe and seamless bathing experience for those with limited mobility, without compromising on quality or luxury.

The term “inclusivity” is often associated with racial inclusion or gender equality. But as an architect or designer, it’s especially important to recognize that inclusion for aging populations is a major component of D&I— and is frequently overlooked. 

As people grow older, they become less physically able to navigate the structures in their homes, and designers need to account for this, especially as “the number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to nearly double from 52 million in 2018 to 95 million by 2060,” according to Population Reference Bureau. Bathtubs, for example, are an area in which designers can provide significant benefits to aging populations; widened bathtub ledges can facilitate the transition into the tub, while walk-in tubs provide much easier accessibility and prevent slippage. 

4. Practice empathy and seek to understand what the user may be going through. 

People typically don’t recognize the importance of empathy in inclusive design. Yet to produce something that is accessible to everyone, it requires a unique level of understanding and appreciation for people’s daily needs and challenges. From learning how individuals experience products, and putting oneself in others’ shoes, designers can more easily identify and limit points of friction in a given design experience. 

The trend of inclusive design will continue to expand and intensify. We’re seeing the beginnings of a shift from status-based products toward those that are simpler and more practical. These products are still beautiful and stylish, but more user-friendly and straightforward, to accommodate a diverse range of users. Designers and architects should keep this trend in mind as they work to stay ahead of the design curve. 

Whether it’s remaining on top of trends, implementing new technologies or prioritizing sustainability, designers, builders and architects have the power to accelerate the progression of inclusive design, water conservation and sustainability. But more importantly, the ones who view design from an empathetic, careful and critical eye are those that will stand out among others while changing the lives of so many.

Wanted Design 2021 - Closeup

LIXIL Global Design Showreel

Last year, as part of our internal communication campaign, we released the LIXIL Global Design showreel.

LIXIL Global Design creates products that are used by over a billion people, everyday. We transform trends and insights into experience for our consumers and value for the LIXIL brand.

ICFF / WantedDesign 2021

What LIXIL’s Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff Looks For in Emerging Designers

October 26, 2021

“A generous amount of empathy” is one key thing Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff, leader of LIXIL Global Design for the Americas, looks for in design talent. WantedDesign is honored to have Jean-Jacques as part of the Launch Pad 2021 jury.

Over the past 25 years, Jean-Jacques has built and managed international design teams in the US and Asia for companies such as Terk Technologies, Kohler and LIXIL/American Standard. He looks for deep connections between the product on one side, and the users and stakeholders on the other, to create lasting value for the various brands he worked for. His work spans consumer electronics, private yachts and aircraft interiors, bath and kitchen fixtures and fittings, medical devices, branded retail environments, packaging, and subway train interiors.

In 2013, Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff joined LIXIL Water Technology America, where he spent the last eight years building an award-winning design team responsible for the design of all American Standard and DXV products. 

Jean-Jacques is passionate about discovering and supporting the next generation of designers. American Standard, part of LIXIL’s portfolio of global brands, is a long-time WantedDesign partner and the sponsor for Launch Pad 2021.

We spoke with Jean-Jacques about his role at LIXIL, his vision for American Standard, and what he is looking for when reviewing young designers’ portfolios and projects.

WantedDesign: Can you share a bit of the new design vision and concept for American Standard’s upcoming collections?

Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff: We just completed an important project called the American Standard “Reference Line.” This collection of products will not go to market, but instead is meant to represent the purest expression of our brand values, and will help maintain consistency and homogeneity in our design approach. It is our “North Star,” a benchmark to use when creating future American Standard products.

Photo credit: American Standard

The American Standard brand is Dependable, it is Inviting, and it is Pioneering. We translated these brand values into physical Signature Elements – Taper, Pillow and Frame – meticulously chosen to imbue our products with form and qualities that will help us build brand equity and generate more long-term value for our brand. In short, we created a semantic, a code, a language.

Beyond the form language, it was also important for us to demonstrate the user-centric design process that is the bedrock of our design philosophy. So most of these products have been developed using our Presearch process – a process that combines ethnographic and market research, consumer segmentation, brand values and trends research, which led to a number of utility patents. The intellectual property created through this process will fuel our future product lines for years to come. 

You will start seeing this work infuse new products in the months to come. First, this November, we are launching a new touchless faucet – CleanIR – that leverages fully our Signature Elements. Then our first full collection based on all these principles will be announced in the next year and will certainly mark the start of a new era for American Standard.

Photo credit: American Standard

WD: What are your design priorities at LIXIL, and across the brands?

At LIXIL, our role as designers is to leverage trends and insights to create experiences for our consumers and value for our brands. We are currently applying the same approach we used for the American Standard Reference Line to our other brands in order to increase the equity through consistency within each brand, and create clearer differentiation between them.

WD: What do you think will be the big changes, new lifestyle and habits in the years to come that design should respond to?

The pandemic has accelerated a number of trends that were a long time coming. It seems reasonable to think that we will continue to spend a higher share of our lives at home and not in office, as technology made our connections seamless and remote work a new normal. So both of these environments – home and work – are being looked at under a different light now, within their new roles and functions.

I invite you to look at our new North American headquarters that just opened in Piscataway NJ, as an example of how we translated our vision into a new office concept that reflect our values.

In response to the insecurity of the outside world, our homes have become sanctuaries more than ever, a trend that is poised to impact interior design for some time. But I see the urgency of the climate change crisis as the most consequential event influencing the way we design, produce, ship and use products in the future. For us at LIXIL, it will certainly impact product development, manufacturing and distribution, and will also present a unique opportunity to redefine human behavior toward this precious resource we call Water.

Photo credit: American Standard

WD: Finally Jean-Jacques, can you tell us what you look for when you scout for new design talent?

At LIXIL, our design philosophy is rooted in User-Centric Design. We tend to look for designers who, beyond having a passion for creating products and possessing a great sense of form and detail, demonstrate a generous amount of empathy, are curious about the way users live their lives, and seek ways to make it better. More and more, the projects we work on are multidimensional – they have a research component, a technology component, a branding component, etc. – so having designers who approach projects in a holistic way is very critical as well.

Thank you, Jean-Jacques, for speaking with us and continuing to be a supporter of emerging design talent.

WANTED DESIGN 2019

Wanted Interiors: Bathroom of the Future 2025 with American Standard + Pratt

Now in its third year, Wanted Interiors offers unexpected ways to discover and experience products, in the context of a living space. The theme explored by American Standard and Pratt design students is the Future of Water, exploring life-improving scenarios in the bathroom environment. Focusing in particular on users and energy efficiency, innovative solutions for the near future and new bathroom systems for sustainable and healthier residential housing will be presented at WantedDesign Manhattan.

Q&A with Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff
Lixil Water Technology Americas
Vice President, Design

WD: Can you give an overview/intro of Lixil, your task for the group and which of the brands you are focusing on?
LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere. I am the Vice President of Design for our flagship brand in North America, American Standard, and for our luxury brand DXV.

WD: What is the design process with your team?
All projects start with a definition phase. It can be as extensive as including ethnographic and market research, or as simple as looking at design trends and competitive reviews, but it is always extremely critical for us to understand our consumers and use those insights for each product we design. We then go through an ideation phase – which may include early prototyping and testing, and finally, a design development phase to hone in the final details of the design. We always go back and forth between drawing board (a digital one, of course!) and prototypes order to achieve the right balance of form and function, proportions and details.

In parallel, the design team is involved in documenting the process to share the design with our customers and consumers so they can connect with it.

WD: What are your main focus right now that drives the launch of new products? the challenges?
Our industry is changing rapidly – we are focused on how to use water more efficiently, both through technology and user behavior, and how to make installation of our products easier. We also stay connected to the evolution of design trends to make sure that across our three brands have a portfolio that matches the aspirations of any customer.

WD: Water is the most vital natural element that we need to preserve. How do you respond to that and how design can make a real impact ?
American Standard has been at the forefront of water saving for the past 150 years. Claiming that your product saves water – that a toilet uses 1 gallon of water per flush, or a shower head uses 2 gallons of water per minute – is extremely easy. Delivering an efficient, enjoyable and fulfilling user experience with that amount of water is extremely difficult. It can only be done by gaining a deep understanding of our consumer’s needs and behavior. We work hand in hand with our engineering and R&D teams to deliver this experience to make life better while preserving this precious resource that is water.

WD: What will be the best outcome you expect from your collaboration for American Standard with Pratt students presented at WantedDesign?
We collaborated with the students from the Pratt Institute and the Pratt Accelerator to explore avenues we usually don’t explore as a company. They brought a fresh point of view and sensibility to something we look at every day. This project is also an opportunity to engage in a dialogue within the design industry about an area of the home that has not fundamentally changed from generation to generation. I hope everyone visiting Wanted Design will leave wondering how their approach to water could and should change.

WORLD DESIGN SUMMIT 2017, Montreal, Canada

Keynote Presentation: “Purpose and Beauty

World Design Summit

Montréal, October 18th, 2017

Jean-Jacques L’Hénaff

Beauty & Design: What is beauty to you?

Beauty..... I began thinking about this word a lot over the last few months in preparation for today. I don't think I had ever used the word BEAUTY in the context of what I do. I tend to use more precise words to validate a product I work on, and beauty is not a precise indicator. But, I became more conscious of the absence of that word in the everyday steps my team and I take to design a product. In fact, as head of design for American Standard and DXV, I work with an international team of designers who I believe are exceptional talents and together we design objects of luxurious necessity. Through the metrics of a prescribed design vocabulary and brand id, and other phrases that we all over use, my team and I aspire to capture the attention of, and persuade consumers at the retail level with our DESIGNs.

As strange as it sounds, I looked for BEAUTY at work, but the word itself, felt too old fashioned in our design studio off fifth avenue. Beauty seemed too arcane, a term that came with an avalanche of classical imagery. It was a word I associated with fashion or cosmetics….but not with what I do, not in the 21st century world of brand culture!

What I realized, over this bit of time, was that I had to remove the industrial designer lens I had been wearing for so long. I was trained like many industrial designers to follow a Modernist approach: form follows function. From Le Corbusier whose work fascinated me as a child, to Henry Dreyfuss in whose office I worked and cut my teeth during my early years, I, like many Modernist acolytes followed in the giant feet of Eliot Noyes, Dieter Rams, and the breakthrough Johnson era, Modernist architects whose philosophy promoted the mantra that ornament is superfluous and only function and truth to material should remain. This was often translated in a way that pitched beauty against function, and beauty, this esoteric, obscure and mysterious word was not so much used, as much as DESIGN; Good Design.

And, the authenticity of the DESIGN is what made it Beautiful. Seminal….perhaps even a work of art.

So beauty, in my mind, had no place in my everyday work.

Or did it?

If I ask you: would you prefer to own an average, or an ugly faucet or would you prefer a beautiful one, I would imagine you would most certainly choose the latter. Beauty, this elusive and inexplicable descriptor of form --- is the thing that we can all agree we want. So what does Beauty look like? To you? To me?

When the world was small, beauty could be one thing: it could be that perfect human body that was revered by the Greeks, or the Mona Lisa – the standard of female beauty for Renaissance Europe or the strict mathematical proportion and sameness of Hausmanian architecture in modern Paris.

The visual landscape of each of these societies had a highly developed yet simplified formula and the maker provided beauty within the parameters of that formula. And it was understood/ and emotionally accepted by all as the canon of beauty in the society it reflected.

But in the big world of today, beauty is represented in many ways and it is experienced in equally many forms. We live in an intensely visual culture, and we are bombarded by visual references all the time and they touch us and manipulate us and remind us in nanoseconds. Our connectivity gives us access to the most remote corners of the world and the elimination of these distances has multiplied our beauty references and expanded our imagination with it.

So, if we can agree that beauty is many things…and we might not know what it is yet, how does this discussion about BEAUTY translate into the corporation and that of the design department?

Henry Dreyfuss, in his book “Designing for People” published in 1955 (and please remember it was 1955), likened the designer to an Indian Chief, juggling the needs and wants of departments whose notion of a beautiful product was not always in alignment with each other or perhaps that of the consumer.

In the corporation I work for, the Beauty salvo for Engineering is in the mechanical challenge: the delivery of cost-effective solutions to highly technical problems, and the form is generally a by-product, an irritating one that gets in the way of the more exciting aspect of just making the darn thing work.

Marketing goals are derived from the successful implementation of a strategy that increases market share, builds brand loyalty through continuity, creates higher volumes and even bigger margins...and the beauty of the product is whatever can successfully make that happen.

Operations seeks its comfort in numbers and through sets of rationalized decision making, creates streamlined processes to increase control over the unknown and to align expectations over all else....

And then there is Sales What can beauty look like for Sales….it is actually more a like a sound: catching…. Beautiful, right?!

So, who in a corporation owns Beauty?

Beyond all these tongue in cheek interpretations is my area of the corporate structure, where I witness an ever-increasing demand for predictable design results, for reduced risks at retail and in our showroom. I call this the tyranny of the number’s game. Design has been widdled down to a set of statistical analysis that comes from testing “concepts.” How many of us have been subject to it? We are asked to test our concepts -- on the web, through focus groups – we ask people what they want, we survey, we co-design, we partner with our customer and so on. In order to make a creative process acceptable and palatable, we break it down, and we make it quantifiable, easily understood by those who do not do it professionally, but who hold the spreadsheets…and the proverbial p&l.

So has beauty become a quantifiable and calculable part of design success?

As designers we are then asked to take this “helpful” data and within our corporate walls, we harness the output through a tightly controlled visual brand language, with an established design vocabulary, with visual signature elements. We do this to differentiate our corporation from yours and to build a following. A following that is attracted to product compilations that we distill into one beauty..... the canonical beauty of our own corporate making....and yes we go back to the Greeks. We go back to a cannon of beauty that we have solidified through our brand language that reflects our corporate beliefs.

How do we design professionals, approach this within our respective companies? As I said, I began thinking about beauty recently and it made me uncomfortable because I'm not a beauty guy, I'm a perfect plastic injection part line guy...when done well, it is art!

So... where does beauty exist…

A few years back we received a lot of attention at DXV for a line of 3D printed faucets that we developed. We won quite a few awards that year, and the year after as well, and we found ourselves attracting an audience that had never thought to look at us for design innovation. But what interested us at first in the discussions we were having internally around a small table of executives, was really how to harness this new buzzword, Addive Manufacturing, to produce on demand products and to achieve zero-inventory. It wasn't to create Beauty. Imagine, zero warehousing. Imagine zero waste, imagine producing on demand with zero resources up front. All of a sudden the departments identified in Henry Dreyfuss's caricature of the designer as Indian Chief seemed aligned in one goal. It was beautiful but it wasn’t about beauty.

The process began with a problem to solve and our problem was space and untying dollars in product that sat in a warehouse waiting to be wanted. But designing faucets for printing that the consumer could choose or personalize just did not feel like the right answer...it felt too gimmicky. I gave my team a simple design brief: design something that we can’t produce using traditional manufacturing techniques as we know them today, and see where it leads us. And so they did, because as I mentioned, I have and international team of exceptional design talent!

At the end of the investigative process, we did not even spend that much time on the design itself: instead, we looked at the way we wanted to deliver water to the user. And in doing so we designed the experience of water in a new way.

When you turn the handles of the first two products, the water path is activated and water travels stealthily through the thin, inner mesh structure of the see through body / to the spout / and water appears magically at the apex where it then descends into the bowl below; water arrives as if called from the mind. It is not visually congruent, meaning, we know intellectually that there is a pipe in the wall that connects to the faucet and forces water to the spout, but in this image, or physical interaction we don't see how?; reason is interrupted … what is left can only be … magic. Our sense of wonder at this unique experience provides a momentary tickle because we have enjoyed the magic show and the thrill of the trick. Can beauty therefore, be found in the surprise of being surprised?

For our third product, our approach was opposite: we designed the look of the water stream first, inspired by the movement that water makes as it travels over a rocky stream. The result was a series of 19 hidden, tubular waterways delivering water and sound over a metal landscape of sculpted forms. The water flow was calculated and finely tuned with the help of Computational Fluid Dynamics software, and the hand of an individual artisan completed the sensorial process by burnishing the metal in order to highlight its exterior appearance….touch sight sound . Here the beauty was not in tricking the mind's eye, but the beauty rested in the sentimentality of memory and personal experience walking through nature, listening to water trickle over brooks and streams. Each of these designs caught one's attention, but the cost to own a faucet was extreme.

We sold more than we anticipated (the first one in Canada BTW!). But what was unforeseen was the incredible response we received for our brand within the first hour of launch, we had over 60,000 hits in that hour. It was followed up with requests for interviews, editorial articles, features in interior design magazines, blogs, architectural journals and all sorts of social media outlets. Clearly, we hit upon something. But was it Beauty?

The 3d printed faucets came from left field, from an investigative process of a problem to solve that was aligned by all departments but not supported by anyone of these departments. The project could not be quantified. It could not be calculated. It had no precedent and - rational business thinking was cautious at best. Out of left field it garnered a momentum for our brand that actually had no place in its brand vocabulary language etc etc. But what we hoped to communicate to our retail partners and consumers was that we might be a young brand but we were thinking and innovating and mostly looking at the future and its problems. Incidentally, it didn't solve our inventory problem across the company but we continue to take what we've learned to inform our next step in that direction.

A year later, we started on a project that began in my little black book. I'm old school so I carry a black sketch book and I sketch all the time because I travel all the time, and jet lag is a problem and I solve it with my little black book.

At the same time I was building a modular home and the interest of this build for me was the concept of modularity.... Putting boxes together to form a shape to create your own space. From this thread of thinking the Modulus line by DXV was born. Our approach was to develop something different than the usual American Standard process and to put DXV, its luxury brand, at the forefront of people's mind when it came to well-designed contemporary products for the bathroom. The investigation included ease of functionality, the simplicity of modularity and like Legos or wood building blocks, the independence of creating furniture of personal expression for any size bathroom.

We kept the colors clean and peaceful. We kept the materials useful and functional. We gave it some luxury to the touch, the suede cabinet pulls and the smoothness of lav trays that could hold precious items, like contact lenses, earrings, make up, your Apple watch, your perfume. The tray could sit perfectly in the drawer or when brought to the surface placed firmly and intimately in the indented layer where it looked like it belonged all along. The pieces could be configured to your liking (not mine), giving youthe opportunity to make the line match yourlifestyle, your vision of beauty.

And lastly, we designed the fittings to be the eye candy or jewelry dazzle in the bathroom. We created accessories that personalized the faucet. By adding this small part at the base, we gave our customers the opportunity to accent their environment that, BTW, did not break the bank. You could put "a ring on it", forging a union between you and DXV that was respectful of your decision to be yourself in this intimate consumer relationship.

And so, was this Beauty? Was independence to be your own creator of sorts Beautiful?

The last project I'm going to share is not as well known by industrialized nations where most of our customer base lives, consumes and eliminates. You won't buy this product, you won't want to use it, and you definitely won't consider it beautiful, but beauty as I mentioned at the beginning can take many different forms and as I hope I've shown so far can be experienced without a set formula but can become a thing of beauty none the less.

At American Standard, we design products that no one wants to really talk about, but due to our human biology, everyone must have…and not just one or two but sometimes too many! We are a luxurious necessity. (you’ll see what I mean in an minute)

Toilets, vanities, bathing systems: the bathroom is where we wash, and we eliminate what our bodies no longer find useful. It is the most private of spaces; we lock ourselves in willingly; and we ventilate desperately; we try to encourage our children to use the space frequently. And as wordly human beings, we tend to put the greatest distance, physical and psychological, between ourselves and our waste matter. We go in, it’s a blur of sensations and we leave ready to continue life having all ready forgotten the minutes before.

We spend more per square foot, on our bathrooms that on any other room in the house. Even though bathrooms stay empty and unused for a greater part of our day in comparison to other spaces in our home, we make bathrooms an indulgence at great effort and cost. And beauty is the caveat by which I believe, we feel free to luxuriate in our primal bodily functions; psychologically beauty ultimately blinds us to what we absolutely must do in bathroom spaces.

But what if you're poor? What if you live in the 3rd world where washing and eliminating waste from the body has the potential to also kill you? What then? What is beauty to you in the most elemental of circumstances?

About 2.4 billion people have no access to proper sanitation facilities around the world. And about 800 children under 5 die of diarrhea daily, caused by the transmission of disease through lack of proper hygiene methods. Its absolutely crazy to think and heartbreaking to know that these numbers exist. So, a few years ago, a team of engineers from American Standard took the challenge offered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and travelled to Bangladesh to find a solution to a very human problem. There they spent time observing, talking, exchanging ideas, and trying to find local economical solutions that could improve the lives of people who were born into so little comfort.

In 2013, AS engineers rolled out the SaTo pan (SaTo stands for Safe Toilet), a very simple 2 pc. plastic system encapsulated in cement. The counterweighted piece filled from the same cement used to create the latrine, seals the latrine opening. And this little action of articulated plastic, was all that was needed to prevent flies and mosquitos from coming in and out of the pit – and therefore preventing the spread of diseases. In the process, it suppressed odors, bringing a little more dignity to the experience of expelling waste. The last part to this solution was the use of less than half a litre of water to flush the bowl and the water was an additional sealant in keeping things in and smells out. It was a rudimentary yet brilliant mechanical solution that used local sourcing and brought the cost of a toilet like the one I’m about to show you to less than $2.00 to build. Over a million were installed so far!

Less than $2.00 to provide safety and dignity to a community of people. Beautiful!

This is project is truly beautiful to me – so please indulge me and let’s spend a moment with Jim McHale, the man behind SaTo.

The goal is to have over 100 million of these first and second gen toilets in place by 2020, in parts of the world like Kenya, Haiti, India, Rwanda, Nigeria and Ethiopia. And it is a commitment that our parent company has taken seriously. Lixl water technology committed a core group of engineers and product designers under Jim McHale, to finding solutions to human problems like these, all around the globe, even in the United States of America.

So, in the end, what is beauty in design?

For me.....the perfect plastic part injection guy......Beauty is a problem well solved.

What is it too you?