The Evolution of Koen's Garlic Keeper...  

Oh you tease me...the jpeg's...
Oh you tease me...the jpeg's broken (for me at least). Anybody seeing this? I'd certainly like to now...

Let's try.....
I am always somewhat surprised when I read or hear comments on the fact that I improve a product each time I am given an opportunity to do so. Improving a product is one of the wonderful aspects of producing yourself. Both in the industry and in a small scale production like ours, plaster moulds have a limited lifetime. That life time is subject to a number of factors like the aggressivity of the slip, the quality of the plaster, the handling, drying etc. A good mould lasts between 100 and 200 castings. In my case I make up to 6 moulds per product so after 1000 pieces I get a chance to remake an original and new mould. I could not imagine reproducing the existing shape because in a production of 1000, you get enough feedback to improve on it. It also gives you enough time to think about the product you are making in order to find some improvements on the way it is made. I can not translate the Italian poet and Walt Withman scholar Cesare Pavese, but you might be familiar with his quote on creation that says:
Creation immerges when a countless repetition of an act turns a routine into something disgusting, often followed by a dull period of confusion. At the end the original act, forgotten because of it's banality re-emerges like a revelation and that is the outburst of creation!
I have never experienced the banality of repetition, because you try to learn every time you repeat something, but I have to agree with his thought that good things are always the result of many trials.
I am not particularly found of my own products but it is difficult not to answer a request like DCWilson's.
Although there are many more sketches in between, there are only three models of the garlic keeper that went into production. The first one is the one shown in the DA index. After having made a few hundred of them people started to comment on the keeper being to large or too big. So, at the first opportunity we made one slightly larger and one slightly smaller. Although the holes on the side were helping in explaining the function of the product, and in spite of the fact that they were placed on the parting line of the mould (where two parts of the mould come together) I was not very happy with the fact that it allowed light to get in from the side. We also had a production problem with glazing the inside. The outsides are not glazed, just vitrified, so when glazing the inside I have to have three fingers on the holes, white holding the piece with the same hand. Both requirements became the reasons why I moved the holes to the bottom. I only made two holes in the bottom simply because two fingers are easier to control than three. The cover did not have any holes, so, to make the point that air circulation is important to keep the garlic fresh, was not as credible as I expected.

cont.
I also wanted to have the top of the lid flat in order to fit more of them in the kiln. From a strictly formal point of view the shape was originally inspired by the shape of the garlic and did not feel as consistent with the other products that where based on a conical shape. These considerations became the basis for the second version. The lid became a small Venturi shaped cone with holes in the flat bottom, the top completely open in order to avoid a multiplication of holes in the product and a more conical shape rather that a "garlic" shape.
The more recent version came about because of comments on that conical shape. Most people considered the "garlic" shape as more friendly. In the meantime I had been irritated more than once by the fact that the two lids were not the same. The two sizes had been made separately and I simply forgot that the only criterion for the size of the opening was the size of a hand taking a piece of garlic, so, no matter how big or small the container the hole should be the same. It is also a pleasure to have an interchangeable lid, because we can run out of one size and be able to deliver the other size. I also changed the bottom of the cover slightly because in the second version they never seem to fit exactly simply because they had to match two surfaces instead of one. The new lid diameter came very close to the inside diameter of the inside liner of the wine cooler. Because of its size the liner requires a lot of space in the kiln so I adapted the lid in order to fit two of them inside the liner. This is part of our effort to produce as much as possible with as little energy as possible. I know it is only a small contribution, but I think it is an important part of the development method. Finally, regular testing revealed that the circulation was not quite what it had to be with those two holes in the bottom, so I went back to three.
I can't wait until these moulds are worn out because I have a new list of improvements that I would love to apply in the fourth version. One is simply a question of aesthetics. The small edge that, only symbolically, indicated the knob-part of the cover is not well proportioned in the height of the lid, so I would like to move it further down.
I hope it is clear to most of you that contrary to DCWilson's nice words, this is not the result of an outstanding talent but the opposite, the incapacity to deal with many problems at the same time and the willingness to use all the possibilities of trial and error. I hope the pictures will show more but we will have to wait until the good people at DA put them in. I always seem

Thank you...
But I stand by my comments about the quality and functionality and timelessness of the design.
I've thought about it and its predecessor some more and here is my best distillation. The form of the newer version is more about "keeping" garlic, whereas the form of the original was more about looking like a garlic clove and about "holding" garlic. They both hold garlic just fine, I suppose, but the form of the latest version conveys its function much more articulately IMHO. This latest form looks like something capable of draft and capable of keeping out direct sun light. This makes all the difference in the world to me for it lifts it out of a vaguely quaint symbolism and into the thing itself. Or to paraphrase poet Archibald MacLeish, not an idea about a garlic keeper, but the garlic keeper itself. Or to paraphrase one time Imagiste, the poet Ezra Pound, not symbols of an idea, but an irreducible, concrete image of it.

Post Script...
The migration from garlic holder looking vaguely like a garlic clove to a garlic keeper trying only to look as it can while being exactly what it is; that sort of defines the migration I hope for in design and in architecture towards functionalism. Now, I hope you see why I related this humble artifact to what some of the great functionalists of the past and present. Who knows, maybe now that it looks like what its function is, and it is elegant doing it, you may explore ornament of it even further in functional terms. I suspect you are migrating along the path of functionalist gestalt of our time in your work. You have certainly observed it in certain other persons work. I see no reason for it not to be affecting a master craftsman's work in his ceramics.
Those three finger holes are functionalist in the most profound meaning of the term. They function simultaneously in: a)helping make the artifact; b) in making the means of manufacture explicit (the new functionalist honesty requires things not just to look like what they are made of, but also to look like how they are made); and c) in making the artifact function as a garlic keeper.

cont.
This is just about as elegantly integrated as it gets in functionalist design, old master?
This humble garlic keeper of yours is not a triumph of modernist formalism (i.e., orchestrated geometric forms that functions can happen within. It is instead a triumph of functionalist form.
And the moral/ethical virtue and aesthetic beauty of such functionalist design is that this product can just keep evolving, keep getting more and more refined and purposeful and beautiful in its function. Its development does not even have to end with you. The garlic keeper does not have to be reinvented every three years, next with fins and chrome. Instead it can be built upon, advanced in any constructive way a designer can think of.
Voila, old master. The dancer and the dance just became one, as it appears to have a number of times in your career.
And don't worry if you did not plan it all, though wily and wise old master craftsman that you are, you may well have.
As you know so much better than me, design fully authentic to its time, design in touch with the emergent gestalt, always springs first from the "work" of design, not the critics "thinking" about design.
It is only the lowly like me who are driven to understand that which your hands find their way to on their own.
In closing, old master, as the great mystic Julian of Norwich was fond of saying: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

...
I definitely wouldn't call it "the incapacity" to deal with many problems at the same time 🙂
I really enjoyed reading this thread, because I'm very familiar with this process of trial and error in design-process. My most favorite projects I did at school were exactly like that, searching for best form by doing models again and again.. with each model I realized something new, something important.. and sometimes it opened me completely new point of view. Well, it takes longer and some of my schoolmates who start with doing models at the end of term don't even realize what important part of design process they're missing. 🙁
I really like the idea of small production where innovation and concern over feedback is part of natural process of production. In most companies it looks more like the only goal is to design something new and fresh, something that differentiates from previous products. Doing the same, with slight upgrade of function that isn't so visible, is not popular at all 🙁
but I think it would surely help to make better products ...

Dear DCWilson
I am very pleased with your comments, especially the one on the difference between holding garlic and keeping garlic, because that is the direction in which I would like to improve the product next time around. Somehow the reference to the Venturi effect?.so well known from the water cooling towers?is too close to that generic form and whereas the very first one was a better integrated shape, the last one (photo nr 2) (photo nr 3 is the second version) looks too much like the stacking of two different pieces. Some people actually asked what do you put in the top? Geometrically the conical part of the lid is the continuation of the base, but visually it looks as if it is slightly wider. I would like to correct that. It would lower the lid slightly, which is an improvement of the overall proportions and will bring it even closer to "keeper".
Yesterday, we opened an exhibition here at the university, of a number of young French designers. One of them François Brument, showed vases that are generated by coding the sound of the human voice into 3D shapes. In other words you scream and you have created a 3D file that generates a vase by laser powder sintering. The reason why I mention it is that is has this un-finished quality that is so difficult to show in a real product. The laser sintering is perfect, don't get me wrong, but the end result is something that by it's very appearance tells you that this is only the first stage in a long series. I really think we would be a lot further down the road of product evolution if we considered every product as something that is not finished and that should be completed, re-designed or amended.

koen...
The entrepreneurial key to translating functionalist product development is to make it marketable for what it is--the purchase of a product in development.
Most software is sold as a product in development. One makes a first payment to buy the software and then a series of lesser payments down stream to continually update the software as it develops.
Maybe we can do something like this with hard goods that are made of highly recyclable materials?
A few threads in the past have explored recycling goods in this way, but the discussion was not focused by a functionalist-evolutionary philosophy underpinning it. I cannot right now recall if we have ever just come out and said it quite the way I am here.
Make a widget out of material X. That material is largely recyclable. Tie as much of its energy expenditure to renewable energy sources at the point of manufacture.
Make the widget with molds that either have long lives or are made of materials that are largely recyclable into more molds.
Sell the product. The buyer buys not only to buy the product but to enlist in its evolution. In essense, they buyer is ending having to shop for competitors in the future. The buyer is saying, I am buying a widget, and I am buying the need never to have to look for another widget. I will just request the update when my product no longer meets my needs. The product is marketed and sold with the concept buying this product really solves your need now and forever after. Your free of ever thinking about this product again, because it will keep being updated. You the consumer get to do more of what you like to do. I believe in an increasingly technologically steeped world in which persons have less and less time for activities, the concept of permanently solving one's problems will again be timely. But instead of permanently solving their problem by building the perfect widget that will last forever, build them the best widget possible now, and keep building the best widget possible with succeeding versions of the widget that they buy for an update fee.

The buyer uses the...
The buyer uses the product.
When the next generation of the product is developed, the buyer sends his widget back and it is recycled.
The buyer pays an update fee.
The new product is made and shipped to the person.
This business model would incentivize entrepreneurs into using highly recyclable materials, using energy optimally, and building highly satisfactory products with designs that are intended for updating.
The model can be abused the same way the planned obsolescence was, but then that is already occuring.
The key here initially is to market products designed to a consumer base of with a functionalist-evolutionary ethic and tailor the transactional model to reflect it.
You have to get producer and buyer to buy into the concept. And to do it on a larger scale you would have to get investors and lenders to buy in to it.
Functionist evolutionary design producing functionialist evolutionary ceramic products seem a start. You seem to have sufficient buyers for your size.
The key question is would ethically motivated buyers buy into not only buying your initial holder, but be willing to agree to buy upgrades as they come along?
The relation between producer and consumer, i.e., maker and user, has to become more of a joint venture in terms of product development. By committing to a maker the user believes in for the long term, the user is in effect underwriting his values in the economy long term.

If you want to have to keep...
If you want to have to keep shopping for and buying shit intermittently for the rest of your life, buy the way you already are buying. Either impulse buy at Walmart, or do a bunch of really annoying shopping and sifting from something that might be a little bit above the average of crap in the market place, or sign up with a functionalist-evolutionary designer/producer firm that meets your needs with high quality and a long term relationship. You are not force to buy any particular update, but whenever you do buy one, you agree to buy from our firm and in exchange get the product for the update fee.
It will be a social contract more than a legal contract. You don't have to buy any update, but you're not getting the full value of your original purchase unless you do. You weren't just buying a garlic keeper, you were a permanent solution to your garlic keeping needs. It is just formalizing and tailoring the concept of making a product good enough that the customer wants to come back and buy again. The way you do it is make a good product and make it so that it can be updated and the customer can be apart of the process instead of a hunter gatherer stuck in a wilderness of shit.

Both topics /on unfinished...
Both topics /on unfinished quality of Brument's vase but also idea dcwilson pictured/ made me think a lot..
i don't feel very competent to take part in this discussion as I feel to be very beginner in this area,
but at least 🙂 not to make this thread disappear I'll take my try 🙂
Vases generated by coding sound of human voice into 3D shape sound very original... I was thinking about who would this design be for. It looks stylish, just like the main purpose of a product like vase, maybe you can record voice of your child and order vase that would have it's voice "hidden" in it's structure...
well, I'm probably too much craft oriented, but I can't believe this kind of emotional value might work. And I'm not very skilled about technologies so I can't add any clever comment to it 🙂
Maybe this wouldn't be so much to the topic but, one more think I'm a bit confused about is thought I read in Victor Papanek's book Design for real world... he were criticizing there a system based on Bauhaus model, in which current design students are educated. He wrote: "it made good sense in 1919 to let a German 19-year-old experiment with drill press and circular saw, welding torch and lathe, so that he might experience the interaction between tool and material. Today the same method is an anarchonism, for an American teenager has spent much of his life in a machine-dominated society."
I'm not telling that new technologies, computer science, cybernetics.. are not important fields to learn about, but aren't the basic materials such as wood, metal and ceramics kind of base? To build one's knowledge on? Are these materials and traditional techniques really out of date?
It's hard to accept this for me, because I still find a big potential in studying old traditional craft techniques. I think in some way one can learn from them and apply new technology to make that proccess more effective or easier.. just like on video about Wegner chair...
and finally just little thought to what dcwilson proposed. I find it really great thought.. not only from sustainable point of view but also in terms of users.. getting feedback on what goes wrong and whether the product works well (not only sales well) could be really useful information for designer. 🙂

The point raised about...
The point raised about Brument's experiments is a very valid one. My reasons to rejoice in seeing these objects is not that it created yet another vase, but that it widens the scope of what design is and reaffirms the point that in design, not everything can be readily applied to the mercantile aspect of it. My regrets on these pieces are that it is not done in a wider context of other attempts to translate works from one sense to the other, ear to eyes and vice versa, eyes to tactile sensations etc. But as well as Paul Klee failed in translating J.S. Bach's music into colours, Brument fails to translate sound into a similar visual experience.
Although, many years ago, I spend an evening with him over good food, I have always distrusted most of Victor Papanek's publications.
Especially his "Design for a real world" is a strange collection of the unlikely mix between proper ethics and improper means. The end result is a justification of un-practical and condescendent solutions for readers looking for a relieved conscience? The possibilities of our media driven society produces these things from time to time. "Cradle to cradle" is another one. So, my comments on Papanek's comments about the Bauhaus would be extremely short.
What is obvious is that Papanek has not understood (and it is too late for him now) that the importance of the use of materials and the appropriate tools in design education has nothing to do with the state of technology in which the student has grown up. I am sure we could achieve the same results just by asking students to learn how to make a flint axe. There is no anachronism in the state of technology simply because the aims of that learning process have nothing to do with how we produce our artefacts now. If it was, it would automatically put the young professional in the disadvantaged position of having learned technologies that by definition are a thing of the past. Your description of an "old traditional craft technique" also strikes me as being an inadequate description of the pedagogical aims behind mastering a particular technology. Inadequate because it places that technology in a historical context (old and traditional) whereas the more important part is that the process between time, raw materials, the tools, the maker on one side and the projected end result, on the other, is the learning process. Papanek never understood that or has never given any indication that he had experienced that same process first hand.