Exciting Times are Around the Corner

I've been sort of 'away' for the past few months doing work for a local engineering / industrial design firm here in Silicone Valley, which has evolved into a full-time in-the-office gig. But as the title suggests, new and exciting projects are cued up in the pipeline. I've been in talks with a local battery technology company here in the valley, and if all goes well (which it looks like it should), I'll be working on form studies for batteries that could end up in upcoming hybrid vehicles. (Prius, to be exact). But let's not jump to conclusions.

In the meantime, I'm still doing a little work here and there for Satarii, and wish the guys the best of luck in getting their start-up fully funded and off the ground.

I promise to bring you more frequent updates within the next few weeks.

New FMF Business Cards

New Postcards

Peerless Lighting Concepts

I conceptualized these fixtures during my industrial design internship at Peerless / Acuity Brands Lighting in Berkeley last year. Now that the non-disclosure period is over, I can finally show them. (Peerless is producing a third concept I can't show here just yet, due out by the end of summer.)

Both fixtures utilize two energy-efficient T5 bulbs and a single ballast that run the length of the fixture. I like to refer to the first one as the "Architect," since that was the target client for this project. Due to the nature of the product, the general form factor was confined to a rectilinear form. But "Architect" plays with slight asymmetry, creating dynamic angles that give the viewer a different impression from either side of the fixture. "Architect" is a very efficient, 100% indirect suspended lighting fixture.

The second fixture is 10% direct / 90% indirect lighting. The concept behind this unit was to create a negative space that orbits the underside of the form, allowing a controlled amount of light to escape through the crevice and produce a soft ring of light. The sharp angles of the fixture combined with the roundness of the end caps create a harmony between soft and industrial aesthetics. The fixture gives off a variety of impressions when viewed from different angles and distances.

Both fixtures are now featured on the FMF site here.

KELP: Petal-Inspired POP Fixture

KELP is a point-of-purchase fixture for displaying Fedaboa's clamshell belt buckles. The inspiration behind the buckles and their belt line come from pearl divers, so when they said they wanted a plant-like structure that could be built-up and expanded on, I came up with the Kelp concept.

Kelp is a simple structure optimized for inexpensive manufacturing. Standard 1/4" and 1/8" acrylic (or sturdy plastic alternative) can be easily laser-cut and assembled. Extension and trunk tubing can be manufactured from standard 2" acrylic tubing. The dome cap and tubing can be threaded for easy screw-on and screw-off assembly. Retailers can easily assemble the fixture in-store with limited instruction.

Hanging Tessallated Rabbit Curtain

I've been wanting to create a hanging tessellated curtain for a while now, and finally had some down time yesterday to put one together. It would be great to be able to sell these, so I've been thinking about getting a prototype made. Have a quick look!

Tessellations are a thing of beauty, and it's puzzling that you don't see more custom organic tessellations incorporated into modern interior design. Tiles are most often kept within the boundaries of a square, trapezoid, hexagon or octagon -- all geometric, rigid forms.

The organic tessellation you're seeing here is inspired by rabbits and their multiplicity (and their beady little eyes)! The curtain's dimensions are 30" wide x 72" in length, fitting a standard doorway. Multiple curtain units can be linked together to divide larger spaces, such as lofts or shared work spaces.

The same tessellation pattern can be used as tiles to cover a wall in a modern home setting, a suave club environment, or a swanky hotel. Imagine water cascading over the tile's relief, creating a shimmer of texture and bouncing light.

The dome of the rabbit's 'eye' captures the environment it inhabits, compressing everything it 'sees.' Placed against a window, the domes encapsulate what's outside, creating a kaleidoscopic view while providing a bit of privacy for those on the inside. The individual tiles are flat on the back and have a domed relief on the face.

I added a new page to my website at http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com/tile.html to feature the tessellation.

Independent Contractors: Estimated Quarterly Tax

I know that at least a few of you out there are Independent Contract Designers, or "Freelancers." Have you gotten all the information you need to start paying your quarterly taxes? If you're independent, your employer is not paying quarterly taxes to the government on your behalf. (Yes, this is my home office in the picture :)

I thought I'd point out a few of the resources I discovered while trying to figure out my tax responsibilities as an independent contractor. First, here are the tax quarter break-downs and due dates according to my tax advisor:

April 15
(Jan - March 31st payment)

June 15
(Apr - May 31st payment)

Sept 15
(June - Aug 31st payment)

Jan 15
(Sept - Dec 31st payment)

You'll need to pay both Federal and State estimated taxes if you live in California. Here are links to sites that allow you to make your quarterly payments to the IRS, free of charge (and paper-free):

EFTPS (Federal)
CA Franchise Tax Board

Normally, an employer also pays half of your Social Security and Medicare obligation for you. As an Independent Contractor, you'll have to pay both your half as well as your employer's half (for a total of 15.3%), doubling what you would normally owe if you were conventionally employed. My tax guy advised me to pay around 25% of my income to Federal and 10% to State. We'll see a the end of the year whether I owe more or receive a refund based on these percentages.

All of this information is what I have come to understand while researching my own tax obligations. Before taking my word for it, make sure you do your own research and come to your own conclusions. It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to taxes, so double-check these figures. If you know something I don't, please post it here so we can all benefit from the information.

If you need help getting started, you might want to take a peek at the small business section of the IRS website.

New FMF Blog Subdomain

The Form Meets Function blog, hosted as a subdomain at blogspot.com, now has a custom URL as a subdomain of the FMF site. The new blog address is http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com.


Blogger makes it easy to redirect your blogger blog to a custom URL. This is especially handy if you have an undesirably lengthy blogger URL (mine was http://www.FMF-FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com). I recommend converting your blog's URL if you want to help drive traffic to your main site. There was just too much of a disconnect between the FMF blog and the main FMF site -- at least now they share the same root URL.


There are two basic steps to converting your blog's URL. First, you'll need to set up a subdomain of your website. In my case, I set up blog.FormMeetsFunction.com by logging into my host's Cpanel. What this does is it essentially creates a folder named 'blog' in your root directory. You have to make sure you redirect the CNAME DNS to ghs.google.com. If you have trouble figuring this out, contact your host and they'll assist you, or follow the link at the end of this post.


Next, you'll need to sign in to your blog and navigate to Settings -- Publishing -- Advance Settings. Type your new subdomain (in my case, http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com) into the text field labeled Your Domain, and click Save Settings.
Test out the link by clicking View Blog. Your blog should now be redirected to the new subdomain your just set up.


When I initially went through this process, I was presented with a redirect page that asked if I really wanted to be redirected to http://blog.FormMeetsFunction.com In order to get rid of this message, I submitted my site to Google Webmaster. This effectively removed this message, since the Google Webmaster now has record of http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com as a valid domain to redirect to. You can sign in to Google Webmaster Central here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/


Feel free to post any questions, or go to http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55373 for a pretty thorough explanation of how to get your custom blogger domain set up.

Linking FB via RSS Graffiti vs. Notes

From what I understand, the main differences between linking your blog to Facebook via RSS Graffiti vs. linking through Notes is a) quicker updates, and b) RSS Graffiti apparently only shows a portion of your post, forcing followers to click on a link that redirects them to your actual blog. This is a good thing if you're trying to increase traffic / page views to your blog.

In any case, this is just a test to see how quickly the link updates with RSS Graffiti. It took about 10 hours for Notes to refresh an entry I posted yesterday to my blog, which is a ridiculously long time to wait for a digital process. RSS Graffiti is supposed to be able to do the same thing within an hour. I'm posting this to my blog at 11:20am on Saturday, April 3rd.

How I came to work for Fedaboa

I was out grabbing tacos with my friend Emma one day in mid-December last year when I received an email from a woman named Raha from a company called Fedaboa. I breezed over the email and saw that whoever sent me this email was interested in interviewing me for a product design position. The sender's physical address was in Holland, so I got a little surge of excitement at the idea of possibly working overseas. I had just finished a design internship at Peerless the previous week, so I was definitely in the market for a job -- I just hadn't started looking yet with the holidays right around the corner. I showed Emma the email, and we ate our tacos on the curb. (Check out Emma's blog at http://accessmama.blogspot.com/2010/04/awesomeness.html)

After Christmas I had a brief phone interview with Raha who, as it turns out, lives in the Bay Area. Raha handles international PR, marketing and distribution for Fedaboa, but works remotely for the company. Everything else Fedaboa does is handled out of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Our conversation went really well, so we decided to meet in person.


Fedaboa, it seems, was on a search for a new product designer to start to kind of take over new product development. Fedaboa is a very young brand, but is gaining heavy momentum as more and more high-end stores are becoming interested in carrying their line of belts, both here in the US and abroad. Celebrity endorsements and amazing ad campaigns are driving this company forward at an alarming pace, and retailers are requesting new products from the brand.


But the group of people who own and run Fedaboa are also founders of yet another exploding company, Big Bang International. With that said, the head designer and founder of Fedaboa has got a lot on his plate designing new products for both companies, so they went on a search to find a product designer to add to their team.


Luckily, I was one of the individuals they chose to contact. They found me by contacting the Academy of Art (from which I had just graduated last May), requesting to take a look at graduating student portfolios. (Note to students and alumni: Get your portfolios online, and link up to the Academy web site!) The face-to-face interview went really well, and I was given my first task: to take a product idea of theirs and, utilizing a given mechanism, bring the project to the next level. This was sort of my 'test,' so I ran with it, excited to be doing work on a real project. (Due to non-disclosure agreements I can't divulge the details of the project, but I will share once it hits the market globally in a few months.)


So I've been working for Fedaboa now as an Independent Contract Product Designer for the past 3 months, and I really value this experience for a number of reasons. First, as Fedaboa is a very small company, I have been able to get my feet wet in so many aspects of the design process. I've already taken the reigns on 3 key projects from concept to manufacturing stage within these first three months -- an opportunity I don't think would exist in such a short period of time if I were to be on a larger company's payroll. (I know this is a general statement, but I would imagine that a lot of "junior" industrial designers start out as assistants to other designers, or as sort of 'production' artists.) I'm pitching concepts to the company, running with vague ideas they've proposed, exploring form and function, and working with manufacturers to bring these products to life. Other than the founding designer, I'm the only other product designer for the company -- and retailers are demanding new products, so we're venturing quickly beyond belts. Fedaboa is truly becoming a powerful fashion accessories brand.


Though working remotely does provide its peace and tranquility, there are surely pro's and con's that come with the gig. Being independent, I don't have anyone breathing over my shoulder, questioning my every click and stroke. As was the case when I was a student, I work very efficiently at home. And it's nice to have the freedom to, say, go to the gym during regular business hours when the rest of the public is at work. (I hate waiting in line for treadmills.)


The downside to all of this is that I don't get to work face-to-face with other designers in a team environment. Then again, it's often difficult doing "group projects" when the real vision is in the mind of a single designer. It's nice being able to run with my ideas and explore them fully without someone else with a different vision thwarting my process.


In any case, my work with Fedaboa has become more of a client-like relationship. I bill them monthly, I pay my own taxes (plus double Social Security), and I don't receive benefits of any sort from the company. These could potentially be seen as negative and undesirable, but for me, the independence far outweighs. Being independent allows me the freedom to open my doors to more clients, which will lead to growth in the long run.


Independence also allows me to still head up to the city every once in a while to grab tacos on a weekday if I want to, or to head to the grocery store during the day when the express lines are actually still quick. That said, I find myself using my free time to enhance my business, reach out to potential partners, establish my online presence, and collect resources for strengthening the foundation Form Meets Function is being built upon.

Building Web Presence

My mission is to use this forum to share my experiences as I travel along this road toward becoming independent -- things I've done right, things I've done wrong, and things I have yet to experience but that are on the horizon. Though I've been "freelancing" since as far back as 2002, this is my first year as an independent contract product designer.

Topics I'd like to discuss include how to deal with clients (especially in terms of how much to charge, invoicing, and retaining clients). I am by no means an expert at this, but I'd like to share with all of you the issues I've faced within this past year. Hopefully I'll be able to learn from anyone else out there that has some wisdom to share on the topic as well.

On the same note, along with the freedom of becoming independent comes the burden of tax responsibilities. This is another issue I'm coming face-to-face with, and as I find answers I will definitely share (such as information on filing quarterly taxes as an Independent Contractor).

For now, I just wanted to quickly touch on web presence.

As I'm sure many others of you are doing, I'm trying to build my online presence. About a month-and-a-half ago (right before moving from SF down to Sunnyvale) I decided to register my business with Google Maps so that I'd come up as a business listing, and I'm happy to report that it worked. If you Google "Industrial Designer 94086," "Industrial Designer Sunnyvale," "Product Designer 94086," or "Product Designer Sunnyvale," Form Meets Function is the first business listing (at least on my computers). I just wanted to share how easy -- and how surprisingly quick -- it is to get your business listed in Google search results. This is just another way to gain exposure, especially if you're trying to build your business. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=industrial+designer+sunnyvale&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

I guess my next goal is to become the first result when you type "John Whaley" into Google. Right now the results include a lot of dead people, but hopefully within this next year I'll be the first (at least living) result. If you Google my name under Google images, a lot of my design .jpgs come up in the image results, mostly linked to blogs that happened to write about a few of my ideas last year.

I encourage all of you designers, stylists, photographers, writers and artists out there to get yourselves listed, especially if you're looking for jobs or client work. It'll only help to do it sooner than later, so get your names and your brands out there!

Everything Looks Fine... Except in Safari on the iPhone (Yuck!)

Update: We figured out the problem. Although SiteGrinder is supposed to treat a background layer as just that -- an HTML background -- it didn't in my case. Instead, it turned my white background layer into a graphic and then scaled it down to fit that top 1/4 of the screen I mentioned earlier. I was able to remedy the situation by deleting the background layer completely and just indicating the background color in the SiteGrinder panel. (Thanks Kevin for the help and the screenshot from your iPod touch!)

If you go to http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com now, you'll see that the new site is up and running, ready to be snatched up and indexed by search engines. For the most part, everything looks as intended. (1 point for SiteGrinder.) Now navigate to http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com on your iPhone and you'll see something completely different. (Minus 1 point for SiteGrinder.) Hopefully by the time you're reading this the issue will be addressed and fixed, so I'll include some screenshots of what I'm seeing on my iPhone as of this posting.

I can't figure out what the issue is. It looks to me like the internal (white) background is being proportionally scaled down to occupy only the top left 1/4 of the page, leaving the rest of the page (and its graphics, etc.) lying on the grey exterior background (which has somehow crept into the interior background area). Again, everything looks fine in a regular browser if you want to compare the two. I've also re-exported and re-uploaded a few times to make sure the file didn't corrupt somehow in the process, so that's not the issue.

Check out the forum post at http://www.medialab.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5291 if you're interested in following the issue.

Higher-Res MuStat Screenshot

As an update to my earlier post, here's the 'before' MuStat "what's your website worth" screenshot in higher-res. My goal is to get that 166 visitors-per-day to... well, higher.

The New Form Meets Function Website is Finally Complete!

Well, it's at least exporting as we speak -- but the design is done. In the past, I've always utilized Macromedia Fireworks (pre-Adobe acquisition) as my WYSIWYG website builder-of-choice, but Danny Tellers (http://www.DannyTellers.com) recently turned me on to SiteGrinder.

SiteGrinder is a Photoshop plug-in that allows you to build your website as a layered file. With the help of some simple 'hints,' SiteGrinder converts Photoshop files to HTML. It's a really intuitive tool, though I must admit I did run into quite the inconvenient little bug in the program.

Normally I'm a fan of drop-down menus. I've used them in my websites for several years now, so I naturally went ahead and implemented them into the rebuild of Form Meets Function. The commands SiteGrinder uses are very, very simple, so when I ran into this 'error,' I was at a loss for finding a solution. I trouble-shot it from every angle, sifted through ill-organized forums, and finally gave up on the idea of including drop-down menus altogether in my design. It just wasn't happening. Without going into too much boring detail, what worked one minute didn't work the next, requiring a rebuild. After rebuilding the menus, things worked again (or didn't), and then didn't (or did). This working-and-then-not-working situation was so frustrating because I wasn't even making changes to my document, and the menus would cease to function -- or start functioning again.

Alas, it was a design problem as I had built my site around these drop-down menus. After some toying around and shifting things here-and-there, I finally made the decision to keep it really simple. The most important contents of the drop-down menu are now constantly visible, and the ones that require one click to head to a destination still do just that. In essence, I'm saving any visitors to my site the hassle of having to make an extra click every time they want to view another one of my product designs. This really was a blessing in disguise, as I truly believe that visitors will take the time to view more of my work with the current setup (especially mobile visitors).

So the site just finished exporting out of Photoshop via SiteGrinder. I'm going to have a quick last look, and then upload the new site. Let's hope this new infrastructure, coupled with the new Form Meets Function Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Form-Meets-Function/110321935652838 and this blog, will drive a little more traffic (and client inquiries) my way.

Current Site Stats

So these are the current site stats from MuStat.com for Form Meets Function, pre-vamp. (Sorry for the low-res iPhone screenshot.) I was surprised to see that the site receives 166 unique visitors a day -- it's more than I expected, given that the site's structure is very limiting. Oh, and FormMeetsFunction.com is apparently worth $90 :) Let's see if we can make that number climb.

FormMeetsFunction.com Redesign Coming Soon

I'm in the midst of redesigning my design portfolio website, www.FormMeetsFunction.com. I've been pretty busy with client work from Fedaboa, and am in negotiations with a new Russian client, but I've been able to devote a little time to restructuring the site. The new FormMeetsFunction.com will be a lot more interactive, with multiple ways of connecting to me. You'll be able to become a fan on Facebook, link up on LinkedIn, and follow along with my business-building progress here on my blog (which will be linked directly from the FMF home page).

I've been trying to really map out the core of the new site, and have decided to keep the main content focused on generating new business and creating new design alliances. At the same time, however, I am eager to utilize the great domain name and create a dynamic discussion forum on design. At the beginning, the blog will have to suffice, but I'm hoping to integrate a forum from Pligg (http://www.Pligg.com) so that users can join the Form Meets Function community and post their own content. This could be a good forum for, say, students looking to get their work critiqued. Or perhaps the budding designer can post his or her professional work (assuming there's no non-disclosure) for a little constructive criticism and design advice.

In any case, something new is coming and, in hopes, it'll be here within the next few weeks -- so stay tuned!

Mobile Blog Post

Just checking out the Mobile Blog Posting feature. Hopefully I've set it all up correctly...

Switched Servers

After having my website go down twice within a week, I've decided to explore other server / host options. While researching how to take FormMeetsFunction to the next level, I came across TMD Hosting. Their rates are far below anything else I've come across so far, and their support seems to be exceptional (but I guess only time will tell). Click the title of this post, or go to http://hostjury.com/reviews/tmdhosting to view several testimonials and bits of data on the company. They've offered to transfer all of the Form Meets Function data over for free. I'll keep you posted on how seamless this transition is.

With all of this in mind, the Form Meets Function blog is going to have to remain put at its temporary FMF-FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com URL. Once I've got everything up and running with TMD Hosting, I'll create a subdomain at blog.FormMeetsFunction.com, and integrate it into the soon-to-be newly redesigned FormMeetsFunction.com

Checking out Blogger for the first time

I'm interested in seeing how easy it is to integrate Blogger into my current website (http://www.FormMeetsFunction.com). Unfortunately FormMeetsFunction.blogspot.com is already taken, so I had to resort to using the FMF acronym in front. Hopefully this won't matter though, since I'm going to try and set up a custom URL to publish to. Now that I've taken the first step by registering my blog, I'm going to try publishing to www.FormMeetsFunction.com now...