Developing a Legacy
Like Schreckengost, Cuffaro develops ideas based on need. On this day, he's standing in the prototype shop in CIA's Gund Building. He's annoyed because people keep throwing trash in the recycling bin, so he is making a vacuum sealed cover to prevent any future inappropriate deposits. It's practical innovation. It's the type of spirit needed of a design director overseeing students assigned to create a new line of products branded as "Viktor".
"We did a lot of research into his body of work," says Cuffaro. "If you look at a bicycle he designed in the 1950s versus the 1960s, it's an absolutely different guy creating – nothing was the same, except his methodology: who is the user, what will resonate with them…
"We're looking at how does Viktor's way of thinking resonate now. It's all fresh, contemporary design guided by the way he'd approach a problem, not the style in which it was embodied."
While not the first design language project with academic objectives, the Viktor design language project was the first time a group of students' designs would be manufactured. The 2009 junior class was given the task. The students' work was to develop a strategy for building awareness for the Viktor brand, which was struggling outside Northeast Ohio. To wit, the product boxes simply read: Viktor.
In January, the class presented their ideas to Cuffaro and Berry. "These were very innovative ideas, some of them very difficult to manufacture, some of them very easy," says Berry. "Dan and I decided to choose three of the easiest concepts to bring to market and get manufactured."
The inaugural line of Viktor products will include a water pitcher, a baking dish and a series of bowls – a tasteful homage to the artful wares that Schreckengost once created. Cuffaro has approached Hall China Company in East Liverpool, Ohio, to manufacture the water pitcher, and the team is working with a manufacturer in Avon Lake to build the serving dish and bowls.
People can expect to see the products on retail shelves by late fall/early winter.
"If you don't have good ideas, you don't have anything – this is about innovation," says Cuffaro. "We're in a visual arts school, so visual literacy is something we need to excel at. You can have a great idea that's beautifully embodied, but if you're unable to communicate it with somebody else, in a way where they 'get it' and are willing to take the next step, make investments, then it's just a great idea on paper." Viktor would be proud.
This feature is part two in a three-part series looking at how the industrial design department at the Cleveland Institute of Art is engaging students, faculty, local business and more to shape Northeast Ohio. Click here to learn how CIA teamed up with APOC to design furnishing for the new campus. The next feature will explain how the future is quite literally riding on the wheels of CIA students.
