Designs for All > Up, Closed & Personal: Oxo Easy Grips

Oxo Company was created in 1990 under the Design for All´s philosophy. This is the idea of creating objects for the widest range of users. A quite sympathetic behavior which underlines the company philosophy is the fact that they exhibit in their headquarters a huge collection of lost gloves to point out the diversity and heterogeneity of their clients. Creating to fulfill every single one lost glove’s man needs.

Love is in the origin of this company, for its founder whished to help his wife who had a bad arthritis by creating tools which would be gentle to use. This first idea gave birth to first fifteen objects. More than five hundred designs hit the market ever since that first approach to make every one’s live easier. This company’s objects pretend to be for all: youth, elderly, left handed, right handed, persons with specific requirements, men and women. Design for All is a visionary philosophy but it is sometimes difficult to fulfill, for there shall always be some thing not accessible to all. The pretension is to reach the wider spectrum. Examples range from salad spinners to be used with one hand to non slippery handles or measure jars which might be observed from the top to avoid the necessity of bending the user’s back. Designs by Alessi or Bodum search also the creation of a wide contemporary heterogeneous spectrum of users. Among Alessi’s big inventions is Richard Sapper’s coffee machine which does not need to be screwed but instead it is easily clipped form top to bottom. An efficient design for all. The market response to this company has been so successful that its shareholders have sold several times in the few last years their participations with enormous benefits. Among Oxo new products are:

• Silicone spatulas.
  
  

• Plastic shakers.
  
  

• Salad bowls with incorporated cutter bowls with incorporated cutter.

Oxo puts into the market more than fifty innovative products every year. The creative process for this objects demands huge dedication and many of them don’t happen to reach the market if they do not fulfill the exigencies of the “Design for All”.