Elixir (Volume 1, Issue 4)
A Stomach for Entrepreneurship
One of the most exciting and fun aspects of our work at Nectar is helping new businesses, and new business people, start at the grassroots level. One such client is Los Angeles inventor and entrepreneur Tony Marrero, a hardworking family man with a lifelong enthusiasm for physical fitness who spotted an opportunity when he realized that, whenever he went to the gym, he wasn’t finding what he needed when it was time for sit-ups and other abdominal and stretching exercises.
“First of all, with the flat mats they had at my gym, I had to have a partner, and it’s not like I love coming up to a stranger and saying, ‘hey, could you hold my feet down,’” Tony told us recently. “Just as bad, the mats were usually so filthy that I had to carry a can of Lysol with me whenever I went. There were sit-up benches of course, but they weren’t always that easy to use even for a fit guy like me — for someone older and less athletic, they could be a real problem. That when the solution to the problem came to me.”
That solution was the first abdominal exercise device designed especially for solo sit-ups and other abdominal and stretching exercises, a product that Tony dubbed Portable Abmat™. After he had developed the original rough prototypes, the engineering and design staff at Nectar helped to streamline and prepare the product for market, both in terms of actual product design and also branding.
With the first fully portable exercise designed especially for solo sit-ups and other stretching exercises, Tony is optimistic that someday soon exercisers of all ages will be taking advantage of his creation. “Sit-ups and stretching are among the world’s most popular exercises for a reason. When people see how the Portable Abmat™ helps them get the most from their workout by making these exercises easier and more pleasant to accomplish, I think the product will find a healthy spot in the exercise and sporting goods markets.”
For more on Tony’s creation’s, see the product’s website, PortableAbmat.com.
Interacting with a More Creative Future
Shaun Redsar is Nectar’s newest designer and part of an elite group — he’s one of six graduates from the nascent Interactive Product Design ( IPD ) program at Otis College of Art and Design . Located near West Los Angeles, the IPD program takes an artistic approach to design, training creators who “work in the gallery of the real world….” In Shaun’s case, this approach can be seen in some of the young designer’s creations, including the Sephira lamp and the Zygo teapot, both of which were crafted both as art objects for display in galleries, as well as products suitable for mass production.
Of course, not just anyone is capable of this caliber of work, and Otis is known for its rigor. Admissions are selective and based largely on portfolio reviews. Freshman students are expected to show competence in a number of areas including life drawing, color theory, and composition. Otis continues to be a challenging school at every stage — Shaun had twice as many classmates when he started the Interactive Design program as a junior than he did on graduation. However, the rewards for taking this arduous journey are more than just a sense of accomplishment; IPD graduates have been hired by such outstanding companies as Apple, Disney, and, of course, Nectar.
Shaun, who jokingly compares aspects of the school’s approach to Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, describes a fully rounded education. “I took as many classes at Otis that focused on the theory and issues of design as I did on the logistics of how to make it work in the real world. It all comes down to creating beautiful objects that improve the quality of life. Otis is not just a big name in the design field; it really did prepare me to work in a creative, but also highly practical, environment like Nectar.”
For more information, visit the Otis College of Art and Design website; and don’t forget to check out Shaun Redsar ’s website for more of his design work.