Visit Sorapot at ICFF/ NY Design Week 2008

Sorapot, along with two of my other designs, will be featured during Rubin Chapelle’s opening party for Design Week. I’d love to see you there. Come by, say hello, and grab a drink!

May 18th, 7 - 10 PM
410 West 14th Street

I’ll also be showing Sorapot at ICFF, booth #831 at the Javits Center from May 17 - 20

Showing/ Selling Sorapots at BKLYN Designs BD+

BKLYN Designs is an event that showcases designers working in Brooklyn, of which I’m one! From May 9 - 11 I’ll be selling Sorapots and showing some newer work at the old Tobacco Warehouse in the park between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges (see the map below). I’d love to see you there!

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Sorapot in New York Magazine’s Best Bets

Today Sorapot is featured as New York Magazine’s daily Best Bet. A big thank you to Rima Suqi, who I met at the NY Gift Fair.

Re-telling a familiar story

I just received a shipment of new Sorapots, and opened ordering once again. The most exciting part of this for me is the feedback I’m going to get as more people use their Sorapots for the first time. Since Sorapot was just a sketch in my Social Psychology 135 notebook in college over two years ago, I’ve wanted the experience of using it to be more like reading a short story than operating a tool. Now that Sorapot’s an actual product, it’s exciting when others experience and then re-tell the story in their own words.

This week Elijah Nicolas, a commercial pilot and early Sorapot customer, posted a detailed unboxing of my design to his blog. It’s a strange, wonderful feeling to read how he interprets a project into which I’ve sunken so much thought over the last two years, having only encountered the physical endpoint of all my theorizing and revision. He shows how single points of contact with the design- the box’s texture, the scroll format for the instructions, the teapot’s finish and weight- add up to form an overall narrative. Elijah’s Sorapot unboxing

Heather Ann Snodgrass did something similar with her recent article, “Brewing Sorapot” for Behance. She contacted me with basic questions about challenges I’ve faced, how I manage my time, etc, to which I gave excited, yet basic answers. As you’ll see when you read her article, she wove these disparate points of information together into a story that richly summarizes my path with Sorapot, current thinking about design and entrepreneurship, and plans for the future, in a way that I never could. Brewing Sorapot

Interview on PSFK

My friend Piers Fawkes has an insightful trendspotting blog called PSFK that’s one of my daily reads (although I still haven’t figured out what the name stands for). He recently interviewed me about how Sorapot was launched through design blogs, why hustling is critical for independent designers, and why stainless steel might save the world. Here’s an excerpt:

Joey, We’re fascinated with your tenacity. We must have met at Likemind over a year ago and it was there you told me about your new kettle and there still seems to be much buzz about it. How did it all start?

It’s actually been about two years since I started sketching ideas for Sorapot in college, and I had originally intended it only as a portfolio piece to snag an internship after graduation. Somehow a blogger for CoolHunting found my site and posted Sorapot. You can still see the original post (and original design) here.

Other blogs, including Gizmodo, picked up Sorapot on the same day, and I started getting emails from individuals and retail buyers asking about price and minimum order size. This was my first encounter with the power of blogs as a marketing tool, and with the idea of producing and selling my products on my own.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Speaking at Princeton’s UDesign Conference

When I think of design at Princeton I think cerebral architecture, but in two weeks the university is hosting a conference about making design accessible and useful. They invited me to speak about sustainable industrial design. I plan to discuss how design that anticipates patina is the most sustainable; something like my post about how New York City handles rainfall. It’s a start, but I think I can go deeper with the conference’s “design for non-specialists” theme. Any suggestions?

The conference is March 1st and totally free. You should come! Register here.

New York Gift Fair

I’m showing Sorapot (plus some new concepts that haven’t made it to the site yet, but soon will) at the NY Gift Fair this week. I’m sharing booth #3704 in the Accent on Design section with two other very smart designers: Carrie Solomon and Verena Schreppel. The fair runs from February 2nd to 6th at the Javits Center, 655 West 34th Street in Manhattan.

It would be great to see you there- let me know if you need a guest pass.

First 300 Sorapots are Sold Out

I just got back from two weeks in Asia, my ideas about design and manufacturing much changed. Check back for a longer post, but for now:

The first 300 Sorapots have found owners, and I’m working to have a second run ready for the spring. A tremendous thank you to those who placed orders. If you’d like to be notified when pre-orders start for the next run, shoot me an email: joey@joeyroth.com

Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tokyo

As you’re reading this, I’m probably reading Purple Cow and flying to Asia. I’m visiting the workshop that’s making Sorapot, ensuring that the first 300 are perfect, and getting the glass teacup started. But I’m also going to be in three wonderful cities over the course of two weeks! If you or someone you know wants to get together while I’m there (20th-23rd for Shenzhen, 24rd-26th for Hong Kong,27-29th for Tokyo), shoot me an email and we’ll grab a drink.