Have a Drink

The Swiss engineered SIGG bottles (children's line shown above) are some of the flashiest water vessels out there, but there's much more to these drinking buddies than good looks. SIGG bottles are made from a single piece of pure aluminum with a water-based, non-toxic coating that's actually flexible and crack-resistant. And as opposed to plastic water bottles which are only 15% recyclable and may leach harmful toxins into your drinking water, SIGG bottles are 100% recyclable and won't leach. You can find out more here.

Clean Up then Eat Up

Want to spend some time outside at work …. try picking up a few things while your out there. Great idea Anne; there was even a prize for the persons who found the most unique junk. Then we kicked off the season with a barbeque on the front porch of WhiteBoard.

WhiteBoard Welcomes New Creative Director

WhiteBoard Product Solutions has hired Brian Prentice as Creative Director. Prentice brings broad corporate communications, retail marketing and branding experience to WhiteBoard.

“Brian’s range of skills are a great fit with our cross-disciplinary team of product design, engineering, and prototyping capabilities, and will enhance our marketing capabilities of packaging, promotion and brand development,” said Rick Polk, president. “Providing the highest level of merchandising and communications is essential to the success of our client’s products. Brian makes us even better.”

Prior to joining WhiteBoard, Prentice spent five years as Creative Director at The Nancekivell Group, leading corporate brand and identity work, and print and interactive communications design for clients such as American Medical Systems, Best Buy, Carlson School of Business, HealthFitness, Hutchinson Technologies, Possis Medical, Tennant and Veit. He was Creative Director at SWP Agency for six years, and was Design Director at the John Ryan Company for eight years where he worked with retail and financial clients doing branding, point of sale and signage design for domestic and international clients.

WhiteBoard Product Solutions of Eden Prairie, MN (formerly known as Leisure Product Solutions) is a product development consulting firm specializing in innovative design, engineering, prototyping, packaging, multi-media and branding. The 30 person firm has been in existence since 1986. On December 1, 2007 WhiteBoard moved into a new 23,000 square foot state-of-the art facility.

Flybrary

Leading the charge in the new "invisible storage" trend, Umbra is offering the elegant flybrary bookshelf by designer Satina Turner for only $26.50. You can find out more here. They've got a lot of great stuff at reasonable prices so check out their site.

A day for the Earth

For designers and engineers alike, creating ‘Green’ products is no easy feat. Its comparative, no one product will save the earth. We just have to make an effort to create products that are better in design, esthetics, and conservation than their predecessors. So in honor of Earth Day I want to share a free Life Cycle Assessment Calculator ( LCA ). If you know what this is … use it; if not … check it out.

Hot Dish

Our remote designer was back in town and we threw him a 'hot dish potluck' lunch. Tony was happy to be back .... or just happy there was macaroni.

Manned Cloud

The jaw-dropping Manned Cloud is a 40 passenger airship hotel proposed by French designer Jean-Marie Massaud & French national aerospace research body ONERA. The idea is to experience the beauty of the world without being intrusive—to explore without leaving a trace. Included in your cloud experience will be a restaurant, library, fitness suite and spa, and even a sun deck located atop the double helium filled envelopes. And clocking in at over 100 miles/hour, this thing can move. And when it's not traversing spectacular destinations around the globe, just stick a huge, obnoxious corporate logo on the side and float over to the nearest soccer stadium. That's one slick blimp!