Mint's very first product was the 'Hug' Salt and Pepper Shaker. Although the three founders of Mint thought it was a beautiful piece of modern design, it seemed as though they were they only ones. After suffering the rejection of several major design manufacturers, the team had to reevaluate their plan. Luckily for us, they were confident in their design and it would not be long before those same manufacturers were lamenting the day they ever doubted those fellows from Mint. To read the full story, scroll south...

The Story:

In March of 2006 Follow Function had the opportunity to visit Alberto Mantilla, Anthony Baxter, and Scott Henderson at Mint’s Manhattan office. They were very gracious hosts and indulged our constant questions. As we got to know them better, we gained a deeper understanding of Mint’s story.

We knew about each of their successful design consultant careers, but we thought perhaps Mint was founded with the goal of creating a new career path. As it turned out, the guys had always planned on remaining mild-mannered consultants by day while transforming into the super-design action team known as Mint by night. In fact, we interrupted their consultant work for our visit, as they have still not given it up even after the colossal success of their own company.

“Ultimately,” admitted Anthony, “it would be ideal for us to design whatever we wanted, without having to answer to a client.” We wondered just how far they were planning to take their brand. Would we one day find the ‘Full Contact’ line at a Target near us?

“Doubtful,” answered Scott, though we got the impression that the concept was certainly not unheard of amongst the Mint inner-circle: “We would have to sacrifice too much, like the quality level of the materials we choose. And a company like Target would want about a 300% mark-up.”

Interestingly, these are issues that would never have come up if the guys had had their own way. As we mentioned before, not only did they plan on keeping Mint a side project, but they never even intended to take the risk of manufacturing the products themselves.

The first product they designed and prototyped was the ‘Hug’ Salt and Pepper Shaker. Their goal was to try and sell it to a major modern-design manufacturer, such as Umbra, in the hopes that they would fall in love with it, manufacture it, sell it, and give the royalties to Mint.

Unfortunately no one was buying. They all said that the ‘Hug’ design was too cute, and did not fit with their ultra-modern, too-hip, product lines.

But Mint was undeterred and decided that they believed in their designs enough to take the risk, and manufacture their product line themselves. Eventually they impressed the right people at the Museum of Modern Art gift store, a leading retailer of contemporary design. The folks at MoMA liked most of the pieces, but were not too sure about ‘Hug’. Mint told them that if they wanted the rest of the line, then they would have to take the Salt and Pepper Shaker as well.

As it turns out, MoMA was quite lucky that Mint was so insistent, because ‘Hug’ quickly became their number one selling item.

What the decision makers at Umbra and the MoMA store failed to understand was the level of sophistication implied by the Mint designs. Yes, ‘Hug’ is cute, but it also is a beautiful form that actually tells a story. And the story is what people are responding to.

The same theory can be applied to Mint’s ‘Salad Song’ Oil and Vinegar Cruets. Alone, one of these vessels is a pretty cool form because of how it bends and the interesting way a liquid would flow from it. But together, the cruets tell a story. Together, they are a choir, serenading you at dinner. It can even make your other dining furniture more attractive.

The guys at Mint still run into the folks at Umbra every year at the New York International Gift Fair, and every year the folks at Umbra lament about what a terrible mistake they made by not jumping on the Mint line when they had the chance. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Alberto, Anthony, and Scott feel too badly for them.

[Mint products have received praise from some of the most distiguished critics, including those at I.D. Magazine and Wallpaper]

More About Mint:

It was in the year 2001 when Alberto, Anthony, and Scott decided to form their own design collective. A mint, in the industrial sense, is the source of manufacture and invention. But the word also derives feelings of freshness. It is this type of cleverness and innate problem solving ability (as in solving the problem of an unnamed company) that permeates each of Mint’s products.

Alberto Mantilla and Anthony Baxter left Henry Dreyfuss Associates in 1994 to co-found CurveID, a design consultancy that soon sported an impressive list of clients some of which I shall name here: Ford Motor Company, John Deere, Sony Corporation, GRACO, Stanley Tools and Colgate Palmolive. Also impressive was the list of numerous design awards they compiled while at CurveID.

Scott Henderson was also verging on design superstardom before Mint. Of course he was much more modest when he described his breakthrough OXO dustpan and brush as merely having “generated a lot of media attention”.

If anyone is counting, Scott's work has been included in ID Magazine's Annual Design Review seven times, in Metropolitan Home's special issue, it has received one Gold and two Silver IDEA awards which are given out by the Industrial Designers Society of America and published in Business Week Magazine, an Appliance Manufacturer award, an International Housewares Association Gold Award, three Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Awards, and two awards for Excellence in Universal Design from the National Endowment of the Arts. Not too shabby.

An interview with Scott Henderson:

1. Many of your designs rely on a fascinating geometric interaction. What was the inspiration behind this (if it can be narrowed down to a singular moment)?

We started experimenting with the concept of “Convergence” early on in the design of the Mint product- where two objects necessary to achieve a single task are conceived as one unit or “story”. We think this adds compelling opportunities for design innovation because no longer do you need to focus on the singular object, but rather its composition and how it relates to its environment. Even its “negative space” can become a design element when one considers the design on this level. How the “Salad Song” vinegar and oil cruets create a singing metaphor when the two vessels are viewed together is a good example of that.

2. What influences your perception of cool? Do you look at modern design a lot? Does it come from a part of you childhood?

Cool is realizing something that was there already, except nobody has realized it until you have. In our brand of product design, it’s about making a connection- an intellectual or emotional connection to something that people universally think of as positive- from history, their childhood, culture, etc. If we can communicate something positive through a functional object, the response is usually a smile. The user smiles because the “get it”. They get the message buried in the product and that makes people feel smart and happy. Everything has an essence, and it’s about capturing the essence of something and representing it three-dimensionally. When you can do that successfully and someone can see that “point of view” from just a glance, then the product will be successful. No, this doesn’t come from looking at modern design. It’s all about finding the big idea.

3. Are there any designers or products that directly influence your work or the way you think?

We like to take mundane objects and transcend them. Transforming the mundane amplifies a good design concept inherently because not only is there something clever happening or some nice solution being offered, but we’ve taken an object previously ignored and provided it with lots of life and interest.

4. How long does it take from initial idea to final product? How many hours a week do you work?

This depends on the design, but we’ve averaged about 8 months or so from thought to thing on most of the MINTS. Usually the design idea happens very fast, but sampling it and correcting the many subtle problems that naturally occur as part of the process takes some time and patience. We all work on Mint a lot. I think good designers do this stuff constantly, not just nine to five. Makes it easier to be at the right place at the right time, both literally and when you’re searching for a good idea.

5. Have there been any obstacles in your quest to design a product for Mint? Are there any interesting stories behind the decisions you have made?

When we first started MINT, we were told that our HUG salt and pepper shakers were nothing more than a ceramic salt and pepper set, and we would not sell many as they are typically low performing items. The product continues to be many of our retail client’s number one performing products. This is a typical obstacle- getting negative opinions from others and making the mistake of accepting their opinions as fact rather than believing in your instincts..

[other products designed individually by alberto, anthony, or scott]