I have a thing for chairs. I don’t dare count how many I have in my house because it’s overwhelming. While I have the normal dining chairs and such I have a collection of ‘design’ chairs that are somewhere between sculpture and art. I use them around the house but most people look at them as more of decoration than a useful object. One of my favorites is by a designer named Konstantin Grcic. The ChairONE is one of the coolest chairs I have ever laid eyes. Most may not share my opinion…I like because it looks so much like the Stealth Bomber with the planar surfaces that look uncomfortable to sit on yet in reality is quite comfortable….

One of my other favorites is this Eames LCW (I have it Walnut):

Somehow I manage to keep growing my chair collection even though I don’t recall ever having enough people in the house to actually utilize them….my wife thinks they may need to end up at the office which would not be the end of the world…..

I’ve known this for some time but everyday it becomes more and more clear. I need to hire someone to do the shipping, receiving, trash-taking-outing, sweeping, organizing, labeling, packaging so I can do more marketing, designing, thinking, customer servicing, emailing, blogging, developing, fixing network issues, adding products, photographing.

I keep holding back because I am getting ready to relocate my family and the business to Charlotte North Carolina  and don’t want to train someone only to leave as soon as my house sells. So, I am stuck here in this limbo of being overworked and not getting to the things that I really need to get done, like finally getting a chance to design some new stuff. I decided a few months ago that I wanted to release a new product every 4 months and to do that I will need to free up some time, at least 6 hours a week to focus on whatever it is I want to develop.

I hope that when we move I can get someone full or part time that has their head on straight so I can do the stuff I would prefer to do. I like answering phones and emails but packing boxes and running UPS labels…..not so much.

I was thinking today that we have lot of international customers at Out Motoring. Out of the 10 or so phone calls today 3 were from outside the USA. One from Australia, one from Puerto Rico and one from the UK. Pretty cool huh? The funny thing is that each country truly does have their own dialect and speech patterns. It’s fun to talk to people from Australia that often end conversations with “cheers mate”. Quite likable people in my opinion. In fact I don’t recall having a negative conversation from any of our international customers as they are often very happy to find someone who will take the time to actually help them get stuff for their MINI. I’m always happy to help.

By far the most asked question is how to get USPS shipping rates. Our site software was developed with some secret relationship with UPS and for some reason by default it only shows UPS rates and the only way to get USPS rates is to use the drop down menu at the second page of checkout to select “other carriers” which will then allow USPS rates to show up….sounds like the developer of the X-cart shopping software may be getting some sort of kickback or something for doing this kind of crap. Of course there’s no way around it unless maybe we have a some custom code made to work around it??

I’ve been wanting to do something print related like this for some time now and finally found the right person to work with on it and am very pleased to announce that the Out Motoring Poster is available. Designed by John Weber, this poster has already sold way more than we ever thought in the first few days. As a limited edition run of 500, they are going fast!

Check it out on the site when you have a moment.

I had the privilege of working as a Product Designer for one of the Nations leading Industrial Design Consultancies for exactly 6 years (to the day). I had a great time but found a bit more freedom with OutMotoring.com which so happened to grow into my ‘new job’. Each year there is a very cool unlimited pinewood derby race that is held (as a small side event) at one of the major Industrial Design conferences and it always brings out of the best of the best in the ID world.

While I was not a part of this particular years contest, I had helped in years past. This years cars took first and second place and are flat out amazing works or art and engineering coolness. To give you some idea of what is as stake here with this contest…well there’s nothing except bragging rights and some free PR. Was it worth it for them? Of course.

Check it out:

2007 Unlimited Pinewood Derby race Video by Priority Designs (held as annual IDSA convention)

This is a great video for those who have attended a design school and dealt with the BS and silly garbage that spews from the mouths of design students and the teachers that promote it. As a past ID student and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California this video brings back lots of good memories….