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In early February, the 22-year-old design brand Areaware announced it will close on May 1 citing tariffs and mounting pressures on the home goods industry in a letter posted to its Instagram account. Every product weve made has been an act of optimisma belief that good design can make our world a little better, the letter said. Lately though, our world has been making that difficult for us to do. Its been a challenging few months for good design brands. In December, Food52, the parent company of Schoolhouse and Dansk, declared bankruptcy; earlier in February, it was stripped for parts and sold at auction. While Areaware and Food52 dont share the exact same business model, both brands were curators and manufacturers that assembled an eclectic mix of goods targeted toward an aspirational shopper who valued design, affordability, and storytelling in everyday objects. Its a type of company that looks like its on its way out. To be both a curatorial voice and a manufacturing voice are two disparate and incompatible forces, says Noel Wiggins, Areawares cofounder and CEO. It is not a great business model. It’s a wonderful creative model. A ‘record label’ for industrial design Areaware has been a fixture in the home goods landscape since launching its first collection in 2005. It established itself as a publisher of stylish, playful, and accessibly priced products that cut across categories. If you wanted to buy something distinctive but tastefula minimalist silver baby rattle, brightly patterned napkins, pastel candles shaped like blobsyou could find it on Areawares website. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] From the start, Areaware primarily licensed pieces from independent designers, who received a 6% royalty fee, and manufactured them. Less than 10% of products were designed in-house. Through this model, it forged an entire ecosystem of design, from product development to manufacturing to wholesale and eventually direct-to-consumer retail, which it began strategically investing in four years ago. By 2024, direct sales accounted for 26% of overall revenue, domestic wholesale was responsible for 64%, and international accounts and global partners made up 10%. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] Artists and designers who wanted to mass produce their work knew they had a partner in the brand, which took care of manufacturer sourcing, marketing, and sales. This included legends like Susan Kare and Tobias Wong along with emerging studios that eventually became heavyweights like RBW, Jason Miller, and Chen Chen and Kai Williams. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] In many ways we function like a small record label, Wiggins says. Theres this kind of sound to that label and its the feeling of ideas coming before function in industrial design. Over the past 22 years, Areaware collaborated with over 50 artists, distributed its products internationally, and produced true icons of design (David Weekss Cubebot, and its many iterations, generated $18.7 million in sales). A fragile ecosystem While most manufacturers specialize in a specific material or one technique, Areaware was more focused on authorship and doing something interesting with an artist who wanted to experiment. This helped Areaware built a loyal following throughout the design community, but it also created issues on the business side. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] The ecosystem was fragile, Wiggins says. This is because the company made so many different types of materially different goodsfrom glass butter dishes to woodbottle openers and stainless-steel flasks. The variety that gave Areaware its creative identity was also a weak business point. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] This multidisciplinary approach created structural challenges, says Roberto Fantauzzi, Areawares chief design officer. Unlike companies focused on a single category, Areaware did not benefit from the same economies of scale or pricing efficiencies. Developing across multiple categories required higher upfront investment, increased tooling and mold costs, and a careful allocation of in-house resources across a range of product types. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] Depending on the type of new product, like a color update of an existing SKU or entirely new object, product development could cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, Fantauzzi says. While the brand was able to pay its bills and not carry debt, margins were always tight. According to Wiggins, Areaware generated $4 million in sales annually on average, but profits vacillated$40,000 one year, zero the next, then minus $20,000. Still, the company was able to manage. That is, until Trumps tariffs entered the picture. Maintaining that balance between design integrity and affordability at times meant operating with slimmer margins, Fantauzzi says. When tariffs took effect in 2025, those margins were significantly compressed, making it increasingly difficult to sustain certain collections and SKUs at the standards and prices the company strives to uphold. It takes around 18 months for Areaware to bring a product into production and the constantly changing landscape made it extremely challenging to plan ahead and manage the risks involved. It wasn’t only the tariffs, which were horrible as they were, but it was the unknown, Wiggins says. You don’t know whether to wait out if the tariffs are going to change. It creates this enormous stall in the system. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] Around 80% of Areawares products are made in China. The rest are mostly produced in Indonesia (mostly furniture), India (cast-iron pieces), Vietnam (candles), and Mexico (silver baby rattles). Wiggins explored manufacturing the Cubebot with a wood toy maker in Vermont, but the extra cost wasnt justifiable. Production would have cost four times more for the toy itself, turning a $10 product into a $30 product for shoppers. These pressures are also particularly challenging since Areawares business model revolves around small product runs. Aside from the Cubebot blockbuster and few products that have sold tens of thousands of units, most pieces sell in the thousands and hundreds. It wasn’t even only price; it was just the ability to make small batch, Wiggins says. We can’t set up a local factory to do small numbers. Another casualty of the attention economy Wigginswho was inspired by the SoHo design emporium Moss, the conceptual Dutch collective Droog, and the Milanese brand Danesecompares the trajectory of design businesses to art movements. They kind of have their generational moment and then it ends, he says. Lisa Cheng Smith, who once served as the chief design officer of Areaware and has developed products for Hay and Design Within Reach, says the brands closure signals a shift in what type of design is most valued today. When the brand started, the job of a product designer meant you made physical objects, but now it means digital experiences. That speaks to me about the status a product or object has in our material consciousness, Smith says. The voices of creatives are more often seen on digital platforms now. It’s like cooking videos, YouTubethat’s how people are accessing culture. It’s less about buying a meticulously thought-through object. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] Wiggins echoes the impact of digitization on his business, particularly how information travels today. Its a lot easier for everyone to directly find what they need. Shoppers can go on any number of social media platforms to find new brands, and designers can go directly to manufacturers without an intermediary like Areaware. You don’t need the gatekeepers as much, he says. Pre-internet, the role of a curator was, in some ways, more important because if you were a store and you had to find neat thing, you couldnt really search for [them] easily. At the same time, the landscape has become noisier than ever and the constant firehose of content drowns out anything that isnt viral, which poses another challenge to Areawares model. Wiggins describes Areaware as a media company that sells three-dimensional stories, and getting customers to listen is tough. Every time theres a piece of Trump news, the attention economy is going towards someone else’s story, Wiggins says. Youre constantly in competition for attention. There’s such a domination of fear in the attention system that it gets hard to get peoples attention in a way that’s sustainable. The business of designers So where do object makers fit into this new landscape? The wholesale model of affordable designer objects cant sustain itself. Meanwhile, few big brands today seem willing to take risks on emerging studios; instead theyre reissuing heritage pieces, which have baked-in fan bases and greater chances of becoming a break-out hit. That leaves out collectible design, which relies heavily on concept and authorship. Its a place where the voice of the designer can really be preserved, Smith says. Beyond sales, licensing is still important to emerging studios. Sophie Collé, a furniture designer based in Brooklyn, licensed one of her earliest designs, a plant stand with an amoeba-like silhouette that she had been making by hand herself, to Areaware in 2022. The Splat table then went on to be sold at MoMA Design Store, the Guggenheim, and Coming Soonplaces that are retailer-curators first and dont typically manufacture their own goods. The deal became an important income stream for her small business, and through it her work reached a wider audience that led to custom commissions, and larger brand deals and collaborations. [Photo: courtesy Areaware] Not only has Areaware done so much for my career, but it really was a support system for emerging designers, Collé says. I honestly don’t really know another company that does what they did with such grace and respect for the designers themselves. Finding manufacturers and fabricators is such a beast, and not every creative has the time or even wants to be doing that side of the business. That is what really makes Areaware irreplaceable in that sense, at least in my eyes. Ellen Van Dusen, founder of the textiles and home goods brand Dusen Dusen, has collaborated with Areaware for eight years on objects that her company isnt able to make in-house. This includes a plywood tissue box cover painted with faces and a night light. They took risks with products that were a little weird and unconventional that became huge successes, Van Dusen says. [Photo: Areaware] Van Dusen adds that the distribution channels brought her work to all corners of the world. People will text me pictures of the pepper grinders in New Zealand, umbrellas on the street in Japan, and the tissue box in Mexico, she says. “We don’t have those same distribution channels in house, so Areaware brought an awareness to Dusen Dusen that I don’t think we would have gotten on our own. They were an integral part of our growth. And I must mention, the tissue box was on Succession. Beyond being a shopping destination Areaware was also an important industry connector, which is important since the design industry runs on relationships. Laura Young, managing director of collectible design gallery the Future Perfect, met many of the artists she represents now through her work at Areaware directing product development. Areaware laid the foundation for my career, she says. And Smith, who now runs Yun Hai, a retail shop and online store specializing in Taiwanese cooking, met many of the manufacturing partners she works with today through Areaware. The way that I do business is based on everything I learned there, she says. Like the reshuffle of Food52, theres a chance some parts of Areaware might not completely disappear. For example, Wiggins is in talks with Weeks to take over production of the Cubebot. Honestly, we’re trying to find someone to take over the arduous and difficult business model, Wiggins says. And because it’s arduous and difficult and very unprofitable, it’s hard to find someone to do that.
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What really holds people back from stepping up as allies in support of their marginalized colleagues? For example, why dont more men say something when they see a colleague or a customer make a sexist remark about a female co-worker? Our research, published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, suggests that people often hesitate to intervene when co-workers are mistreated because they themselves feel disempowered in their organizations and experience distrust and polarization. Our findings run counter to the common assumption that people dont step up to support marginalized colleagues because they dont care or are unmotivated. Not seeing much action against inequity and injustice can drive this cynical idea. Its built into many diversity, equity and inclusion training programs that rely on motivational tactics of persuasion, guilting and shaming to get people to act. We are psychology researchers interested in how people can use their strengths to effectively support others who are marginalized. We surveyed 778 employees in Michigan and 973 employees across all provinces of Canada, representative of urban and rural areas, working-class and professional jobs, and across all demographics, including gender, race, and sexual orientation. We asked them, What makes it hard for you to be an ally for underrepresented and marginalized people (e.g., people of color, women, persons with a disability) in your organization? Low motivation represented just 8% of the barriers people cited. And lack of awareness that marginalized groups face inequities accounted for only 10% of the barriers people mentioned. Most diversity training money tends to be devoted to teaching employees about these topicssuggesting why many diversity training programs fail. The most common barrier to allyship that our participants named was distrust and tension between people in their organization, which had them second-guessing themselves and self-censoring. People also reported feeling disempowered, like they didnt have the power, opportunity or resources to make a real difference for their colleagues. Why it matters Researchers, specialists and consultants alike approach issues of workplace inequity with the assumption that to drive action, they need to first unblock potential allies deep-seated resistance to change. For example, specialists assume that people need to become more motivated, more courageous, less biased or better informed about existing inequities in order to act as allies. In this study, we temporarily set aside all preexisting assumptions and directly asked people what made it hard for them to be an ally, in their own words. Our goal was to identify practical roadblocks at the top of peoples minds that stop them from taking the first step, or the next logical step. When popular messaging, like on social media, and organizational interventions misunderstand the causes of peoples inaction, they risk exacerbating frustration and tensions. Interventions need to account for their audiences true perspectives on what makes allyship difficult. Otherwise, theyll lack credibility, and people will likely be less receptive to program content. What still isnt known Wed like to further investigate the impacts of the specific barriers mentioned in our study. More insight could help workplaces focus interventions on addressing barriers that are the worst pressure points and avoid overspending on interventions that can move the needle only so much. More than a quarter of respondents said they experienced no barriers to standing up for colleagues. Wed like to investigate whether these respondents simply didnt want to engage with our question, are uncertain about the barriers, or are already engaging in some form of allyship. Our teams previous research has shown that even loud allies who publicly call out bias often also engage in quiet allyship actions, such as privately checking in on how a victim of bias is doing and assisting in strategizing next steps. Whats next Our research team is investigating whether programs designed with this studys findings in mindstarting with building trusting relationships and helping people feel empoweredcan increase allyship action. When diversity programs built on inaccurate assumptions dont show the desired results, they risk having funding withdrawn or being halted altogether. Instead, as organizations take stock and pivot, evidence from our study and others can help them more effectively plan their next move. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Meg A. Warren is a professor of management at Western Washington University. Michael T. Warren is an assistant professor of psychology at Western Washington University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Recently, I made myself a promise: I would not buy any more Lego for at least a year. That plan has quickly been foiled. Lego’s first-ever Peanuts set is just too good, too iconic, too beautiful (plus, my son loves Snoopy and Woodstock.) This perfect brick renditionwith the classic red doghouse and even the campfire and marshmallows to toastis too cool pass up. Lego’s addiction to licensed intellectual propertythe company now sells 25 IP-based themes out of 45 total, often burying the open-ended, creativity-first sets that built the brandis still a problem, but this Snoopy’s Doghouse set proves exactly why these licenses work so extraordinarily well to burn your credit card. [Photo: Lego] The magnetism of that simple beagle silhouette, combined with Lego’s three-dimensional engineering and the bricks’ intrinsic attractive power, is a perfect formula to trash all my financial constraints. Plus, Charles M. Schulz created something so visually strong, clear, and emotionally direct that translating it into 964 plastic bricks feels less like exploitation and more like homage. Snoopy debuted on October 4, 1950, just two days after Peanuts launched, and he spent decades evolving from a puppy shuffling on four legs into the anthropomorphic dreamer who sleeps on top of his doghouse and imagines himself as the Red Baron, a World War I flying ace. Schulz based him on Spike, his childhood black-and-white mixed breed who was unusually intelligent and could understand about 50 words. The name Snoopy came from Schulz’s mother, who once suggested it as a good name for a future family dog. (Fun note: Schulz had considered Sniffy before remembering her advice). Over 75 years, Snoopy became more than Charlie Brown’s pethe became a vehicle for fantasy, playing shortstop on Charlie Brown’s baseball team, typing novels as the World Famous Author, and strutting around as Joe Cool. He ascended the cultural ladder enough that even NASA adopted him as a mascot, naming the Apollo 10 lunar and command modules after him and creating the Silver Snoopy Award for astronaut achievement in 1968. [Photo: Lego] Woodstock, the small yellow bird who first appeared in 1966 but wasn’t named until June 22, 1970, cemented Snoopy’s status as a character who operated in his own emotional universe. Schulz named Snoopys avian pal after the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival, whose logo featured a bird perched on a guitar. The origin story is pure Schulz sentiment: A mother bird built a nest on Snoopy’s belly, then abandoned it, leaving Snoopy to raise the hatchlingsone of whom became Woodstock. Schulz never specified Woodstock’s species (fans guess canary or goldfinch), and he once drew a strip where Snoopy gave up trying to identify him. Like many of us, Atlanta-based designer Robert Becker is a die-hard fan of the characters, so he spent about a year developing the concept before submitting it to Lego Ideas, the Danish companys program that accepts designs made by anyone who signs up for an account and submits a build. Submissions get considered for mass production after they receive 10,000 votes by other Ideas members. Thats when they may get approval by a company committee to be refined by Legos own designers in a long collaborative process. [Photo: Lego] “This set has so much character, Monica Pedersen, marketing director at the Lego Group, says in the sets press release. We were delighted that the Snoopy Campfire product idea received over 10,000 votes on the Lego Ideas platform. Im glad, too, Monica. At 964 pieces and a $90 price tag, the set also hits the Lego complexity-affordability-granularity sweet spot, unlike many of the huge sets the company has produced in the past few years. Snoopy legs and neck are adjustable, letting you pose him and Woodstock in multiple display positions. The red doghouse opens to reveal a typewriter inside, which you can move anywhere. And the campfire scenewhich can also be hidden inside Snoopys homeis set against a starry sky backdrop. The set is already available for preorder; it will be sold in stores starting June 1. And yes, my kid and I will be counting the days till it ships to us.
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