The team of Global Design News has met Larry Witt, President of Home & Outdoor Business Segment and Sunny Kim, Sr. Director of Industrial Design in the Home & Outdoor Business Segment at Helen of Troy (OXO, Hydro Flask, and Osprey brands). Helen of Troy Limited is a leading global consumer products company offering creative solutions for their customers through a diversified portfolio of well-recognized and widely trusted brands.

The firm has built leading market positions through new product innovation, product quality, and competitive pricing. The company has three business segments: Health & Home, Housewares, and Beauty and sell certain of our products under trademarks licensed from third parties, and also market products under a number of trademarks.

Larry Witt, currently the President of Housewares has started in this position from March 2017. Larry’s promotion is the result of a long running succession plan and development process. Larry joined the OXO business in 1994, and they have been partners since.

Sunny Kim is based out of New York, New York, United States and works at Helen Of Troy as Sr. Industrial Design Director Of Housewares OXO / Hydroflask. Having designed within both corporate and consultant design environments has given Sunny a comprehensive perspective in the design process; Over the years he has designed a wide range of consumer products from digital cameras at Eastman Kodak to consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods, medical devices, and home appliances at Design Edge. These diverse experiences have allowed him to be multidimensional and think critically about good design.

GDN: First of all, tell us a bit about yourself (yourselves). What got you in the world of industrial design?

My job is to create a culture where innovation thrives and where industrial designers, mechanical engineers, graphic designers, and creatives can do their very best work

Larry: I’ve spent the majority of my career at OXO. I started in sales at OXO over 25 years ago, worked up to the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for the brand, and now serve as the President of the Home & Outdoor business segment of Helen of Troy (OXO’s parent company). When you work at OXO, whether 25 years ago or now, you can’t help but get wrapped up in the entrepreneurial, problem-solving spirit of the brand. And while not a designer myself, I’ve been able to work with and learn from some amazing innovators along the way. Former OXO President Alex Lee, a product designer himself, instilled so much in me and my colleagues about how to look at and approach good design.

We watch and take part in the product development process day-in and day-out. I’ve watched our design and product teams spend countless hours problem-solving, testing, researching, testing again, always looking for better solutions for the consumer. We are a team that truly commits to the same mission – to make every day better, everyday – across all functions of the brand. We also work with amazing industrial design partners, like the team at SMART Design led by founder Davin Stowell, P9 in NJ and 11 in Boston. I’ve always been a student of design watching people like Alex and Davin work, and having a somewhat of a curious and obsessive nature, I am constantly reading and learning about design, innovative processes, materials, and seek inspiration from various industries from automotive to high tech. Over the last few years we have looked to acquire industry leading brands who, like OXO, approach design and innovation from a consumer centric point of view.

We added Hydro Flask in 2016 and Osprey this past December. My job is to create a culture where innovation thrives and where industrial designers, design and mechanical engineers, and graphic designers and creatives can do their very best work.

I try and lead with a challenger and growth mindset encouraging teams to push the envelope, to never settle for good enough, and to always focus on the end user. Design and Product Development leaders across all three brands report directly to me as a way to ensure innovation and design remain at the forefront of all three brands. Design practices, methodology, and consumer preferences are always evolving which is also what makes the world of industrial design exciting. When managed well you get to play in the future while simultaneously working to create something iconic that stands the test of time. And for OXO, never do we lose sight of why this brand was created and the guiding Universal Design principals which the brand helped bring to life.

I try and lead with a challenger and growth mindset encouraging teams to push the envelope, to never settle for good enough, and to always focus on the end user

GDN: OXO International, Ltd. has revolutionized the American household products industry since the 1990s with the introduction of “Good Grips” products that are designed to be ergonomic. Where do you draw inspiration from? Which are the most influential references in your work, if any?

Larry: Truly one of the best parts about our team is that we look for and find inspiration in unique places. Really, it’s everywhere for us. It all started with the OXO Swivel Peeler and our founder story but continues to this day and really comes from a place of constant curiosity.

We ask why and we ask why not. Why has no one thought of this before? If we change this piece or add this feature, will the end user feel the difference? Is there a latent need we can solve for with design innovation? Our inspiration, first and foremost, comes from our curiosity.

One of the most notable ways you see this in our products would be the Salad Spinner. After years of product development, we introduced the first-ever pump-activated Salad Spinner because pull-string salad spinners weren’t cutting it for us.

The design requires a decent amount of strength to yank the string, and often ends up spinning out of control on the countertop. Drawing inspiration from an old-school children’s toy, we decided to go for a pump. Using a pump makes it easy for everyone to use, and the way you activate it with the large “button” makes the salad spinner a one-handed device. You don’t have to hold down on the spinner with one hand while pulling a string with your other hand.

Sunny: Then there’s the Quick-Extend Aluminum Pole Caddy. Traditional pole caddies (upright storage often used in space-challenged showers) employ a tensile, spring-loaded design that requires users to measure their shower height, screw together multiple parts and wrestle with the spring itself. When you get it wrong, it’s like trying to put a jack in the box back in the box. With our partners at Smart Design, we came up with a pole caddy design that took cues from — of all places — Star Wars.

Finding problem-solving innovation in a sci-fi children’s toy certainly doesn’t happen here every day

More specifically, a Darth Maul lightsaber toy. If you’re unfamiliar, you hold the center of the elongated object, and each end extends from the core. In the case of our Quick-Extend Aluminum Pole Caddy, extend one end and the other extends, too. It took a few engineers who just so happen to be Star Wars enthusiasts to concept the design – a source that is certainly not surprising from an engineer’s point of view, but finding problem-solving innovation in a sci-fi children’s toy certainly doesn’t happen here every day. The design itself won the Best Inventions award from Time Magazine in 2019.

Larry: But we do have traditional design influences as well. Brilliant minds that have influenced the language of design over the years like Zaha Hadid Charles, Ray Eames, to mention a few. Today OXO holds 2,000 patents worldwide and they all answer the challenge of everyday utility and showcase the innovative design and engineering talent and dedication by teams at OXO, Smart Design, and many others.

GDN: What have the most important steps on this path of success been? And why?

Larry: Sticking to and living our mission across teams has been such an important part of the brand’s growth. Many people think of design simply as the aesthetic, but at OXO design is present in all aspects of product creation. We ultimately want the user interaction with our products to be as intuitive as possible — to enable ease, and often delight.

We set out from the start to identify and solve for “latent user needs,” a need they don’t realize — something a consumer might not realize they were compensating for, until they feel our product in their hands and they experience the better way in which it functions. As long as we keep our connection with the consumer, remain curious, open minded to new ideas while challenging ourselves to find better ways to perform life’s everyday tasks, we have a long path of success yet ahead of us.

We ultimately want the user interaction with our products to be as intuitive as possible — to enable ease, and often delight

Sunny: We’ve also chosen to further expand our own internal design capability – creating our design center for excellence – for OXO but really across our Home & Outdoor segment within the company. The Research and Advanced Development team (RAAD) exists to support, accelerate and expand the capabilities of our division’s design and product teams, working collaboratively to bring more innovation into the products we make, how we make them and what we make them from. The additional level of collaboration and insight from this team has positively impacted our design immensely.

Larry: Yes, we have been very strategic with our design and engineering planning and teams. We make deliberate design decisions for better products, but also brand growth. I fully believe that our leadership in the product space and the innovation of our teams have continued to enable us to attract top talent to join and innovate with us. Our people are an important piece of our path to success. We have a shared belief to do better – it’s what drives us. And as we continue to find better and new ways to collaborate and innovate, we do so with an open mindset and clear vision on where we want to go and strategies to get us there.

Our people are an important piece of our path to success. We have a shared belief to do better – it’s what drives us

GDN: What is your approach to design challenges? How do you go about finding solutions?

Sunny: We begin every project with in-home, market, and user research to identify and solve pain points in tasks that may have previously gone unnoticed or have yet to be solved for. This in-depth look at how potential products will fit into hands and be utilized helps us focus our efforts on creating tools that are innovative, comfortable, and make everyday tasks better.

This end-user prioritization has helped us innovate to bring truly unique solutions to market including the OXO Angled Measuring Cups, which let cooks measure liquids without needing to crane their necks, the OXO Salad Spinner, which was the first to include a one-handed pump-activated mechanism, and OXO POP Containers, which were designed to be a simple, airtight storage solution for pantries and everyday home organization that could be activated with the push of a button.

And we also understand that the user experience doesn’t start and stop when a tool is in use. When looking for solutions to make products better it’s and end to end assessment for us. Is a tool sized to fit easily into the average kitchen drawer or cabinet? Is it dishwasher safe? Does it disassemble easily and intuitively for storage and cleaning? We’re always examining not only the needs of the product itself, but the whole user experience from beginning to end.

We ask why and we ask why not. Why has no one thought of this before? If we change this piece or add this feature, will the end user feel the difference?

GDN: After many years of experience and many projects and ideas becoming real designs, has anything changed in the way you approach this art?

Larry: Over the years, the Home & Outdoor business segment of Helen of Troy has grown, adding the Hydro Flask and Osprey brands to our family. These additions not only expand our portfolio, but also expand our depth of knowledge and experience in product design, development, and engineering across a very broad range of products.

We lean on each other for insights and learn from each other’s unique processes, successes and failures. This open and highly collaborative network between our designers, engineers and other key internal teams helps us develop our processes to be more streamlined. We believe in the power of collaboration and team and put our heads together to create the best solutions for products possible, no matter the brand or category.

GDN: OXO is now expanding into the European and international market. By what means do you hope to accomplish that and what new do you bring to these markets in terms of design? What do you aim for?

Larry: We have made great progress on growing our distribution and consumer awareness in international markets, and are energized by the task of developing products for consumers who have culturally unique expectations and challenges. In addition to participation in trade and design shows throughout Europe, we regularly enter core and new products in regionally-based design award programs such as Red Dot and iF to continue to build credibility in this space. It has been an important part of our strategy in winning over customers and retailers around the world.

We leverage our consumer centric approach to ensure we are bringing the right product with the right features and design attributes to the right market. A consumer in the UK uses different products than a consumer in Japan and each will have very specific visual and functional performance requirements. Ethnographic research plays a major role in serving markets outside of the US.

GDN: OXO has won many prestigious Good Design Awards from The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design starting in the early 1990s. You have also dominated the 2021 awards with many of your brands. What is your idea of a Good Design?

Larry: We frame our product development process through the lens of Universal Design and engineer items that pair innovation with purpose. We’re always on the lookout for ways to make everyday tools and tasks easier—even enjoyable. If we can’t make something better, we don’t make it. And good design for us is really delivering an a-ha moment for the consumer.

We’ve accomplished our goal if a consumer realized a task is made better by using our tools. If they say wow, I can’t believe I wasn’t using OXO before, and they recognize the usability and durability of the tools, that’s good design for us. It’s all about how these tools perform for the consumer and they of course must look good doing so and why we also sweat every design detail.

GDN: What do you consider the future of design to be, not just for yourself and your firm, but for the market as a whole? Is there one trend to drive things forward or more, and which ones will those be?

Sunny: We have implemented a Design for Environment approach, which guides our team to make better materials choices and environmental design decisions. We worked closely with our Corporate Responsibility colleagues to develop a process wherein we can use recycled content and packaging when possible, and this will only continue to grow.

We recognize that tackling environmental issues is complex and not a problem any one of us can solve alone. That’s why we plan to continue working with business partners and industry leaders to make strides in product and packaging design, innovation and materials.

To this end, we also see more consumers reaching for durable tools in different materials, including glass and stainless steel. Over the years, we’ve expanded the OXO catalog to include more kitchen to table friendly products that can proudly be displayed when not in use. Our recent launch of the OXO Glass Salad Spinner, and our Steel POP Containers are great examples of how we try to combine function with style while still upholding our promise of a better product.

We have implemented a Design for Environment approach, which guides our team to make better materials choices and environmental design decisions

GDN: Based on your experience and the feedback you get, what do people seek in a new design?

Larry: People are always looking for tools that make tasks easier, and it has consistently been our mission to deliver on that need. When we set out to redesign an existing product, it’s only because our research and development shows we can continue to evolve, refine, and improve upon it. We tweak and iterate to make things better while bringing forth a clean, refined, near classic design language to make our products as timeless as possible. Our Angled Measuring Cup is a good example of this. It continues to evolve while the superior functionality of the product remains, the look can be refined and additional features added to provide further benefit to the end user.

Where our design is purposeful in the past, we haven’t lost any of that but what we’re adding today is a bit more elegance, visual emotion. We have designed and developed well over fifteen hundred unique products over the past 30 years, so we have gained an incredible amount of know-how and experience we are always looking to deploy in our next iteration of given product.

Across our portfolio of brands, at any given point in time we have upwards of 200 products going through our design and engineering process. I like to have a hand in and touch nearly every product we develop to continue to poke holes and ask questions – to stay curious and to be the student of design and innovation I have been over the last 25+ years.

Today consumers expect more than ever that the next version of a product be better in every way than the outgoing model. The ever-increasing pace of innovation in tech and digital has set the bar ever higher and consumers have become used to and open to more drastic levels of change.

They also expect the design and performance of a product to be seamless and to truly work together to deliver on their needs without compromise. It is more exciting than ever to be designing consumer products because so many things that just a few years back were not possible, are now very possible. The innovations in materials and manufacturing methods are making moonshot ideas realities across an endless number of industries.

I like to have a hand in and touch nearly every product we develop to continue to poke holes and ask questions

Additionally, over the last few years, we’ve also seen a change in people wanting the brands they support to not only create innovative products, but also to support important social and environmental causes. We’re proud to answer that call with our partnership with 1% for the Planet which we committed to in 2020. 1% for the Planet is a worldwide community of brands and non-profit partners that help establish relationships and donation opportunities.

We committed to donating 1% of our annual sales to non-profits that focus on some of the most important issues of our time, including creating sustainable food systems, cleaning the air, land & water, and providing environmental education to empower environmental stewards of the future. To date, our partnership with 1% for the Planet has allowed us to donate millions to more than a dozen environmental oriented non-profit partners worldwide. We’re proud to be 1% for the Planet’s largest corporate donor.

GDN: What does that recognition of your work mean to you as a professional? How is the 2021 Good Design Award helping you and your company move forward?

Our teams work really hard to develop exceptional products and that’s why we make the purposeful choice of entering award programs like Good Design

Larry: We’re so proud of the recognition from Good Design for our recent product launches. This recognition assures us that we’re moving in the right direction with our product design and innovation and bringing our best ideas to market in a way that resonates with the design community and consumers alike. We also hope that this recognition and proven success serves as a beacon to up and coming designers, engineers, product managers, and others who are just entering or re-entering the job market to join our team.

Our teams work really hard to develop exceptional products and that’s why we make the purposeful choice of entering award programs like Good Design. We are a very humble group, purpose-minded and really not ones to brag.

Yet, we are a competitive group and love to go up against some of the best consumer product companies in the world if for nothing else than to benchmark ourselves to be even better. Winning is fun, it is motivating and often inspiring.

We are every product of the exhaustive scale of the brands work and recognition, and each new designer wants to do their part to contribute to and leave their mark on what will one day be recognized as one of the most consistent and prolific consumer product design-development.

Winning is fun, it is motivating, and often inspiring

GDN: Last but not least, are there any other interesting innovations and projects you would like to tell us about?

Larry: We continue to find new categories where we think we can bring OXO’s design principles and consumer-driven approach to deliver better solutions. Last year we expanded into the outdoor space, partnering with REI to launch OXO Outdoor, tools created to make better outdoor cooking and clean up experiences for campers.

Through our partnership with REI, we’ll continue to share insights on consumer needs to improve the outdoor kitchen experience through a thoughtful assortment of new products this year.

We also continue to innovate in our Brew category and have some exciting innovations to look forward to in the years to come.

The support of the craft coffee community and recognition from organizations like the Specialty Coffee Association and GOOD Design Awards have given us added credibility we are honored and excited to continue to build upon.

*All images and videos are courtesy of Helen of Troy, Ltd. and OXO International, Ltd.