My collaborator, Constantin Boym & I are very fortunate to have made the acquaintance with a manufacturer who believes people need those types of objects. His name is Hans Maier-Aichen and his company is called Authentics.

You won't find him in his office. Hans spends inordinate amounts of time in Asia, secluded in some suburban industrial park, perfecting molds, sourcing new composites and technologies. He sends us tidy chunks of incredible polymers, and tells us to try to work with them.

Here I'd like to introduce a new product we've created with Authentics. These are airtight household containers that were affectionately referred to by the code name "Tupperware."

Boym Design Studio is different than most offices. We consider ourselves an alternative to conventional design practice. Even though the tools we use are conventional, like the computer and shop, our process is different.

Illustration 2.
This photo captures the perfect consumer family of the early 1960's. They would eschew conspicuous consumption and join the anti-materialist backlash, which happened in many western countries during the late 1960's.

Design for us means detecting trends, pulses that are faintly in the air and peoples fantasies, dreams and memories. All of these can be sampled and mixed into the larger design batter.

We like to look backwards and forwards--drawing on an era of nostalgia--and that cyberfuture where unfilled niches might will be uncovered.

We don't invent anything. A large part of our work consists collecting and analyzing every kind of product and product related items. This can mean studying the 1950 Tupperware line and looking for related paraphernalia, like stock catalogs, period advertising and packaging. Understanding marketing strategies like the Tupperware party, helps us understand how the product was imagined, marketed, desired and used by the consumer.

Illustration 3.
The Tupperware Party, a brilliant marketing ploy, enticed women to become "hostesses," demonstrating and selling plastic products in their own home. The parties also provided an opportunity to socialize at arms length.

We use our research as a map, one that points directions to a constellation of available products and locates the areas which are being left emotionally unfulfilled. Then we begin imagining what the desirable product story could be...

--Laurene Leon