Design Ideas, Ltd.

We’d like to tell you that we work very hard to make a living at our little company called Design Ideas. But the truth is, we don’t. We play very hard to make our company a success. We start the morning with the best of intentions, but by day’s end we’ve really had too much fun to call it work. We spend much of our time and energy searching for new ways, new forms, new methods, and new materials - to express timeless sentiments, to celebrate time-honored seasons, and to organize an office or home. Our touchstones are wonder and delight and order. We take our cues from everyday items. We shop at the same stores you shop at, listen to the same popular music, eat at the same restaurants, go to the same art museums, and read the same magazines. Then we sit down with our crayons and paper to draw up innovative home and office accessories that we think people like you and people like us would enjoy. We’ve used this same formula for almost 25 years. A brother-sister team, we formed Design Ideas in 1982 when we were both in college. We had a million-dollar idea: a wire basket for toting toiletries from the bedroom to the bathroom in college dorms. The only alternative product at the time was a plastic paint bucket that didn't drain and eventually grew a rather vile third life form from a mixture of old toothpaste, shampoo and soap. Adopting the slogan No more mucky slop!, we soon had a considerable customer base that we serviced out of the trunk of our blue Maverick.