Unexpected places your designs have shown up

While not a product design, I’ve worked on two different retail projects in Times Square. So every morning watching Good Morning America I get to see my work. Or New Years Eve, parades, Law & Order reruns…

It’s a surreal thing to walk around an environment and see how people interact with it. Usually in ways you NEVER intended.

“No! 50 year old dad! I did NOT intend for you to pass out on that really cute girly settee I placed in the middle of the girl’s department while your kids run around and shop!”

NOTE TO SELF - if there is a surface about 18" high, someone will sit on it. No matter how brightly colored and covered in rhinestones it might be.

Saw some stuff on er. Who knows, maybe even Clooney “used” it. There are also a lot of other medical shows I don’t watch, could be there too. I know you can pay to place an item on those shows.

But what’s odd is to see them on ebay. New, these were 5-6 figure medical devices. I should start cruising Craigslist for some of my stuff on the cheap.

I still have my CCM Super Tacks from 1982. Great skate.

You do those?

:wink:

Numerous crime scene photos (knife, crowbar)
Countless home-renovation TVshows
Notcot, gizmodo, etc - for a freaking crowbar that was very unexpected.
Random people across the globe making 10min reviews about the product on youtube.
People on forums doing private import to countries product isnt sold in, paying 3-4times the RRP.

Don’t know if you saw it, but I posted i the ICON-thread I saw it featured on Discovery’s How it’s made. That would’ve been a career highlight for me…

Tangent: yo whatever happened to that How It’s Designed show you were supposed to partake in?

Didn’t work out, but it was always a long shot. Fun to be a part of the process, and I learned a lot about TV contracts…

I think designing something ubiquitous like this would be awesome. I once was asked to pitch on parking meters and someone asked me why I was so excited about the project. To design something that is installed 10-20 per city block would be fantastic!

on a shelf at the goodwill… :slight_smile:

I probably see them less often than I should because I can’t skate hehe.

Wha…! Huh? Wait… … . you designed skates for CCM, and you can’t skate!!! But yer CANADIAN Ray… isn’t that illegal? :open_mouth:

My Tacks date(d) back to 1968; the only plastic on them were the white tip guards at the back of the blades. I loved those skates. The first time I had our rink’s skate shop sharpen them they ground the rocker right out of the blades. They were never the same after that.

Not Canadian, Wisconsinite. They should have asked me to design beer koozies.

On the other hand, it was a pure styling job. Women’s recreational ice skates.

Hmmm. Seems you have been in Canada for too long.

Wisonsonite?

I don’t think so.

We are Cheeseheads. Or in your case, and mine, expatriated Cheeseheads.

And I started skating late for a Cheesehead. I was 10.

Lots of phones in hotels - used to be Teledex, I don’t know who sub-brands the stuff. I guess that’s not unexpected though, as it was designed to be a hotel phone.

Some of our new stuff will be in the next Madden NFL game from EA. That’s pretty fun.

Sadly, this monstrosity, never intended to live, let alone be on Craigslist - IDEA Gold winner, relegated to being an E-bike:

iab: My wife is allergic to cheese, so I think I’ve even started to censor my posts accordingly.

I left at 8, maybe that’s why I didn’t skate:/

Always cool to see your work in the wild…

A few of the more interesting instances:

An old full scale wooden model of an MRI System I designed was incorporated into the set for the TV show Battlestar Gallactica

A parking meter I worked on is seen in on a lot of streets these days - but was sweet to see it in an episode of Entourage

And finally - I spotted a reasonably expensive Ebike I worked on in the “bad end of town” being used by an obvious drug dealer. Pretty sure that one was stolen… :slight_smile:

Throwing Knife: Top Shot TV show.
Throwing Axe: Conan O’Brien Show.

This design was well before my time, but probably the most unexpected place for a bar code scanner to show up. Turns out the Enterprise hasn’t switched to RFID either…

Mike: I hope that shot is in your portfolio!

Castle using one of our beverage bottles for ‘medical’ purposes…
Castle_Stanley.JPG

Almost embarrassed to post this one:

Brit Spears wearing (well… holding - she’s trashed)some sandals of mine - mid-meltdown. I always did get the classy ones. :laughing: She went on a week long bender with Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan and although she changed her dress every day she kept wearing the same shoes.

a IBM all-in-one netviewer was installed in every room on a cruise line ship

From what I hear, most of the convenience store lotto machines in Pennsylvania (they choose the machines state by state)

I’d love to design something I see all the time, like a parking meter, but only if it turned out as intended - if not it’d just be a constant frustration!