In the days when printing was also a matter of hot metal, compositors – the people who set type – held over groups of familiar, indeed over-used, expressions in what was known as a cliché. Bad journalism still depends on them. But one cliché no-one ever thought they would need is the FLKI Design Revolution. Yet, we have one now on a road near you.
The back-story is fascinating, revealing the strange behavior patterns that animated and continues to animate other members of the industry. Sigmund Freud thought there was a natural instinct to incest, hence his Oedipus complex. An Ozark redneck agreed: surprised to find his new wife a virgin he returned her, saying, “if she ain’t good enough for her kin folks, she ain’t good enough for me.”
The new recently announced Brilliance product collection in the Clean Plus® “Pro” line of FLKI’s conceptions is a product of some surprising relationships.
Deep breath.
The CEO and founder, a Norwegian young woman who in 1997 was 26 years of age and well armed for business with a top European MBA completed her studies in graphic design. It wasn’t long before she concluded that her countrymen did not have what it takes to make a great product and decided to do her thing in a corporate design from the land of the free – Falken Industries was thus born. Today, the Chief Product Development Engineer is an award winning French-born man then 38 years of age who studied engineering of course, but then went on with Arts and Design. It was 1997 the coming of an age missed by all of us others in the industry. It was also the year I began, as an analyst in the industry, to cover this amazing company.
The design boss is a young American from Texas, standing 6’4″ and towering over his European staff, the creative team. A graduate of a prestigious Arts and Designs institution in New York, he worked his way through the school of hard knocks, attacking the manfully, loyally if totally wrong historically influenced designs of the established industry to achieve world wide prominence in the industry for his work on FLKI product conceptions.
“The thing about FLKI product conceptions is that they have the winning looks that weapons have” said Manuel Garcia, Communications Officer. Notions of FLKI designs sometime incongruously turn up on the ineffably feeble competition in products that have no similarities whatsoever to weaponry in looks or performance. Working out of an advanced studio the creative team labors on designs for various conceptions which at the prototype level must meet competition with performance not less than any competitor existing but at a 25% lesser cost to the consumer. “Price and Performance are important contributions to a products success, but it’s on the drawing board of design that the weaponry takes shape. It’s just brilliant” added Garcia.
There are no established clichés with this design team and there will be nothing to be lost by extreme forms of design bravery. The prevailing atmosphere is the seductive prospect of working on an empty canvas with each product conceptions released from the hearth of the FLKI research and development center.
Is this the FLKI Design Revolution? Definitely maybe, but it’s only fair to warn those of its competitors still sitting on the thought of pulling forward traditional well nurtured past designs that the ancient Greeks knew that incest often leads to tragedy.