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Femme Den: Design for females, without "pinking and shrinking"

By Rain Noe - April 29, 2008

in Object Culture

"Women are still underrepresented in the design industry," says designer Erica Eden, of Smart Design. To combat that, Eden and three other female members of Smart's staff (Agnete Enga, Yvonne Lin, and Gina Reimann) have started Femme Den, an in-company initiative to address the needs of female consumers without alienating males by merely 'pinking and shrinking' existing products. As Eden explains:

A significant number of women live on their own, or are single parents, and have to use products that were not really designed for them. We don't adapt products to specifically target men or women, but we work to create cross-gender products...we believe that by understanding how gender plays a role, our designs will appeal to the largest audience and achieve [best-selling status.]

Femme Den will be presenting their most recent findings at September's IDSA conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Click here for their website.

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honda, ishiro

16 years ago

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"A significant number of women live on their own, or are single parents, and have to use products that were not really designed for them."

So women living with men who're using products designed for men are somehow exempt from this? They can just put up with it?

I call bull. If there's really a difference it would apply to all women. It's good that women are sticking together and advancing in their industry, but you don't have to be perpetuating the whole "ppl with ovaries are just sooo different" mythos to do it.
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a

16 years ago

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And in the world that's struggling with consumerism,
isn't it better to NOT design for the 80% purchasing decisions? the less they're satisfied, the more they'll shop around and less they'd buy ;)
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