Tucker Viemeister

Tucker Viemeister (born August 14, 1948) is an American industrial designer and currently Chief of the [http://lab.rockwellgroup.com Lab] at Rockwell Group. Tucker helped found many important design organizations: frogdesign NY, Razorfish, Smart Design (where he helped design the widely-acclaimed Oxo "GoodGrips" universal kitchen tools), and Springtime USA. He is Vice President of the Architectural League of New York, a Fellow of the Industrial Designers Society of America and holds 32 US utility patents. His work is represented in the permanent collections of: Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Staatliches Museum, Germany. His numerous awards include 11 selections in ID Magazine's Annual Design Review, and the first Presidential Design Achievement Award in 1984. [http://www.idsa.org/absolutenm/templates/?z=23&a=1781]

Early life

As a child growing up in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Viemeister saw how much fun his father, Read Viemeister [http://www.oneglobepublishing.com/yso/art.shtml] , FIDSA, had working as an industrial designer. Tucker was named after the car his father was working on when he was born. He also saw the commitment his mother had for her community work. These basic influences come together in Viemeister's own design career; a mix of enjoyment and responsibility, business and culture. It's a mix that he believes is essential to good design and a healthy society.
With his brother, Kris Viemeister, he opened a jewelry shop called "Ohio Silver" where they designed, crafted and sold fine jewelry, stained glass, leather work and anything else they could make. He went to the Antioch School and Yellow Springs High School, then studied for two years at Shimer College including a year in Oxford, England.

Education

Viemeister graduated from Pratt University in 1974 with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design (BID). He helped his classmate, Ted Muehling start his jewelry career.
He currently serves as a chair of the Rowena Kostellow Fund, a Director of The American Center for Design and The Architectural League of New York, Chair of the Cooper Hewitt Professional Designers Advisory Committee, and a Fellow of The Industrial Designers Society of America. He has taught at Yale, Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, California Institute of the Arts, University of Cincinnati, and Ecole Nationale Superieure de Creation Industrielle. He is on the faculty of New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

Career

In 1979, Viemeister began working with Davin Stowell and six years later they founded Smart Design Inc. Their most successful products are the award-winning Oxo "Good Grips" universal kitchen tools, the advanced technology Serengeti sunglasses and their packages and catalogs, Black & Decker's best-selling Metropolitan toaster, the ergonomic/psychonomic Home Phones for Cicena, the breakthrough Tea Brewer for Cuisinart, wacky Joe Boxer watches with Nick Graham for Timex, and lots of other comfortable, practical, profitable, and fun stuff.
In 1997, Hartmut Esslinger asked him to open a frogdesign studio in New York City. "Genius Watch" in BusinessWeek proclaimed: "Two of the most famous and mercurial figures in the product-design world are linking up." From 1999 to 2001, Viemeister carried a new dimension to the digital giant, Razorfish, as Executive Vice President, Research & Development he built the physical industrial design capabilities and helped direct Razorfish on a global level and internal programs like "Flying Fish," "School of Fish" and "science projects." [http://www.idsa.org/absolutenm/templates/?z=106&a=1781] In 2001, Tucker became President of Springtime-USA. opening the American branch of the Dutch design firm, Springtime, a global strategic consultancy for clients like Heineken, Nike, Toyota, and PTTPost (the Dutch postal service).
Viemeister has been working with architect David Rockwell since 2001. They founded the multi-disciplinary collaborative "Studio Red" dedicated to innovation for Coca-Cola. Tucker is now Lab Chief, heading research and development at Rockwell Group. The Lab encompasses digital interaction design, the material and image library, modeling and prototyping resources. Lab focus is to explore the human relationship with technology, and its effect on experience. This activity includes: science and technology consultation, in house design and creation of interactive environments / objects, and maintaining networks of technology solution providers.
He was called “Guru” by BusinessWeek (8/97), “scruffy brand-meister” by the Architect’s Newspaper (2/06), dubbed "Industrial Design’s Elder Wunderkind" when ID included him in America's hottest 40, and New York Magazine selected him as a “Living Design Innovator” (10/29/07).

Design

National Mall wayfinding system (with Wyman and Cannan)
OXO Good Grips kitchen tools (with Smart Design)
Serengeti sunglasses for Corning (with Smart Design)
Joe Boxer watches for Timex (with Smart Design)
Black & Decker Metropolitan toaster (with Smart Design)
Pool Chair (with Steve Holt and Lisa Krohn)
Phonebook telephone answering machine (with Lisa Krohn)
Coke Cruiser (with Springtime and Rockwell Group)
Red Lounge (for Coca-Cola with Rockwell Group)
Sheraton Hotel Lobby (with Rockwell Group)
Hall of Fragments (Venice Architecture Biennale with the Rockwell Group Lab)

Books

"Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the Structure of Visual Relationships" written by Gail Greet Hannah, published by the Princeton Architectural Press, NYC
"Product Design 6", an industrial design compendium, published by PBC International

Personal life

Viemeister is married to writer Sarah Verdone, has two daughters, Josephine and Louisa, and currently resides in NYC.

External Links

http://lab.rockwellgroup.com/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3325063/Beautility-Tucker-Viemeister
http://shannonsouth.com/pratt/pages/viemeister_tucker.html
http://www.core77.com/blogsquad/idsa/midwest_conference/mp3_tucker_viemeister_245.asp
http://www.idsa.org/absolutenm/templates/?z=28&a=1781
http://itp.tisch.nyu.edu/object/ViemeisterT.html
http://www.rockwellgroup.com/

References