Graduates of Stanford’s product design program have developed everything from medical instruments to surfboards to toothpaste tubes. Some of their greatest hits:
Apple II and Macintosh, Jerry Manock, ’66, MS ’68. Manock’s case designs for the Apple II (introduced in 1977) and Macintosh (introduced in 1984) helped break the mold of anonymous beige computer boxes and define Apple as a company that used creative design to make computers friendlier. Manock also introduced David Kelley to Steve Jobs, establishing a relationship that would lead two years later to the Apple mouse.
Fountains at Bellagio, Mark Fuller, MS ’78 and Claire Tuttle, ’77. Jim Sachs recalls that fellow student Fuller “was always playing with water.” Fuller founded WET Design in 1983 and has made a career building computer-controlled water fountains. The Fountains at Bellagio in Las Vegas, designed by Fuller, Tuttle and their colleagues in the mid-1990s, behave less like traditional fountains than something out of Fantasia: their 1,000 “water expressions” and 4,000 lights are choreographed to Aaron Copland, “Singin’ in the Rain” and Lionel Richie. More recently, WET Design created the cauldron for the Olympic torch used at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.
IDEO. It’s not a product per se, but arguably IDEO is the most important thing to come out of the product design program. When it started as Hovey-Kelley, no single firm reflected the program’s philosophy and approach; its growth and success did a great deal to confirm the viability of Professor Robert McKim’s vision. The 1991 merger of David Kelley Design and three other design firms led to the creation of IDEO. Its products include the Apple Duo Dock, Oral-B Squish Grip toothbrush, Palm V, Steelcase’s New York showroom and the new Handspring Treo communicator.
Koosh, Scott Stillinger, ’73, MS ’73. Toy designer Stillinger came up with the Koosh while trying to develop a ball that his small children could catch easily and play with without getting hurt. The first Koosh was a bunch of rubber bands tied together into a small ball; the name comes from the sound the ball makes when it hits a person’s hand. Stillinger co-founded OddzOn Products in 1987 to market the Koosh and develop new toys (often designed by other product design alumni). Oh, yes: the children are now undergraduates at Stanford.
Xtracycle, Ross Evans, ’97. While a student, Evans worked on ways to modify a conventional bicycle to increase its carrying capacity and utility on bumpy roads, making it a more serious competitor to the automobile. In 1998, he started a company that has sponsored programs to train mechanics in Latin America and Africa to build versions of the Xtracycle from local materials. —A.P.
