art4d, architecture / design & arts | Feb 2010
number 166
dec 09 – jan 10
Easy Rider. A Michigan-based design firm, JRUITER + studio has just designed Inner City Bike to simplify people’s inner-city personal transportation needs. As the trarget group lives and works in the city environment with minimal space, bicycling at this level might be more about fashion and culture than speed and performance. The design team simplifies a typical bicycle structure and inner city bike is the result. The bicycle includes planetary gear, free-wheeling hub, and is on the slow side – quirk, but fatiguing over longer distances. The positives are easy quick turns, and huge power to the rear wheel to go over curbs and other cityscape structures.
- Read Less
the Doctors TV show | Jan 2010
Jan. 15th, “The hottest health trends for 2010”
The inner city bike was shown on the Doctors TV show.
http://www.thedoctorstv.com
Solace fall & winter 2008–2009 | Nov 2008
Pushing design limits in search of the next big idea-
As a child growing up in Grand Haven, Michigan,Joey Ruiter spent a lot of time playing on the beach and in the water. When he wasn’t physically active, he recalls, he was drawing. Either way, Ruiter was busy doing what kids do when they play: finding boundaries and experimenting with how much freedom he could wield within them. This expression of freedom within form is still a big part of who Ruiter is today, as a young, successful industrial designer working from his own studio in Grand Rapids. It’s at the heart of why he ended up in industrial design, which falls somewhere between two other careers he explored: engineering—which is all about parameters and exactness—and fine art—which is often seen as an exercise
in freedom.
“Industrial design has boundaries that I’m able to understand and accept, and then work within,” Ruiter says. “That appeals to my creative side, plus I was able to see career possibilities.”
After discovering industrial design and getting a degree at Kendall College of Art and Design, career possibilities quickly became realities for Ruiter, right in West Michigan. He is in high demand as a designer for many of the region’s contract furniture companies.
“I guess I’m known for having futuristic concepts—the next big idea,” Ruiter says. “People who approach me to work on a design for them usually don’t know exactly what they want. They’ve reached a place where they need some problem-solving and direction for certain issues within the industry.”
As if the pressure of coming up with “the next big idea” isn’t exciting enough, Ruiter keeps himself hopping by setting near-impossible goals and imposing crazy deadlines.
“I’m kind of a mad scientist of design, the way I push myself,” he says. “I’ll call someone up and say ‘I have a great idea I want to present in a month.’ They say ‘Great,’ we set up a meeting, and then the pressure is on to pull off a prototype within the time frame. It keeps
it exciting.”
Inspiration: found everywhere in everything.
For these great ideas, Ruiter is inspired “by everything,” but particularly by the gear and trends surrounding activities he loves, like biking and boating. The design issues he examines and pushes range from form and function to the use of unexpected materials and new manufacturing processes.
“For me, doing something new is about simplifying things in a way that makes them smarter and better,” he says. “Sometimes when you do something new and smart it throws everything else around it into question. That can be scary for a lot of people, but it’s definitely exciting. My goal is to push those limits, but also to promote change in a way people can accept.”
Ruiter is as mentally inspired as he is visually. He loves trend forecasting, following current events, and observing people—how they interact, how they work, and how they play.
“I look for all kinds of social and economic triggers, and I’m a news junkie with lots of opinions,” he says. “I also think I have a lot of empathy. I understand how different situations make people feel, which really comes into play in my designs.”
In addition to being human-focused and forward-looking, Ruiter’s designs are known for their cleverness. It’s not a loud, goofy cleverness, though. It’s more subtle, like a touch of humor that takes people by surprise but then quickly makes all the sense in
the world.
Some of that cleverness is imbedded in the object’s function, but other Ruiter designs incorporate jokes that are at once visual and conceptual. Ruiter’s bird feeder, for instance, has a cutout of a bird on it.
“The bird watching the other birds eat while people watch the whole thing is funny to me,” Ruiter says.
When several people asked if his bird feeder was squirrel proof, his response was classic Ruiter: designing a squirrel feeder. “Squirrels have to eat, too,” he says.
“I look for all kinds of social and economic triggers, and I’m a news junkie with lots of opinions,” he says.
Back to boat basics.
While Ruiter is known for his furniture designs, his other big love is designing boats. He is starting a boat company called just that: A Boat Company—mostly because he loves boats and worries that the boating industry is “backwards,” and needs a new approach.
“The materials used to make boats are very dangerous and are killing the people working in the factories,” Ruiter says. “And then a lot of people who own boats don’t use them because they require too much maintenance and work covering and uncovering them, storing them, getting them back out. I thought ‘Why are boats so complicated? A boat just needs something to make it float and something to make it go. Maybe something to sit on, too.’”
That’s how Ruiter’s Front Runner design and his new take on the classic pontoon were born. The boats are perfect representations of Ruiter’s philosophies about design, materials, manufacturing and fun, all rolled into one.
Holland Herald | Jun 2008
Floatastic
For US designer Joey Ruiter, the Front Runner is all about “going where other boats can’t and having a lot of fun getting there.” With two 215-horsepower engines it can also get you where you want to go pretty quickly. Able to operate in as little as 15 centimeters of water and run over debris such as rocks and logs, it features durability of a monster truck and the thrills of a sports car, spinning and sliding around corners in a blur. It’s not on the market yet, but be patient: there are product plans for spring 2009. The expected price is $55,000-$70,000. Ruiter is also working on a twin 400-horsepower prototype for military applications, scheduled for production in 2010.
- Read Less
Grand Rapids Magazine | Feb 2008
Making a splash
What’s good for the office is good for the dock at least when it comes to Grand Rapids-based industrial designer Joey Ruiter’s work, which looks very good in both places.
Ruiter studied fine art at Muskegon Community College before transferring to Kendall College of Art and Design where he discovered industrial design. Since graduation in 2000, he’s done product design for a number of West Michigan’s companies, must recently Steelcase subsidiary Turnstone.
With one foot still planted in the world of office furniture, he set up shop on his own as JRuiter Studio four years ago. “They get what’s going on,” Ruiter said of his office furniture clients, which these days include Haworth, Nucraft and izzydesign. “They’re sort of ahead of the ballgame, as far as pushing industries to move forward with the green processes and sustainable design. Great fashion, great products – they get it.”
Yet, like a human Slinky in a competitive game of Twister, Ruiter continues to stretch himself, bouncing between contract furniture work and other design challenges – primarily, he says, to keep himself entertained. “It’s hard to do boxes all day,” Ruiter deadpanned, referring to the foam core prototypes of modular office components that occupy vast chunks of his west side studio. never mind the fact that some of these “boxes” represent a quantum leap forward in the way executive office furniture suites function.
Practically everything Ruiter designs seems to advance an idea about improving the way that product’s end-user works, plays or lives. And no product illustrates that better than the watercraft Ruiter is designing for industry upstart A Boat Company. Last February at the Grand Rapids Boat Show at DeVos Place, the company debuted Ruiter’s Frontrunner – a dual engine watercraft reminiscent in concept to the pod racers from Episode I of the latest trilogy of the “Star Wars” films. The “wow” factor in a boat like the Frontrunner comes from its form, not the bells and whistles that tend to drive up the prices of conventional boats.
“Form and style and color – that’s all fashionable and free,” said Ruiter who grew up near the water in Grand Haven. “It’s the components that are expensive, so our goal is to break those down. … When you do that, you end up with a product that’s a lot simpler to make and is more likely sustainable.”
Other than the fact that they all float, Joey Ruiter-designed watercraft have little in common with conventional boat. In addition to the futuristic Frontrunner, which he classifies as a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object), he is working on a new class of slick runabouts powered by small airplane engines, and pontoon boats he calls platforms, which essencially are floating decks with customizable architecture and motors. Ruiter predicts that A Boat Company can make these basic platforms for a price that starts at $6,000 to $10,000. That would be a coup in an industry that has seen boat prices soar, driving would-be customers towards used boats.
“The public has caught on that most new boats are the same boats they were 15 years ago,” Ruiter said. “And they’re only $5,000 versus $70,000!”
Each class of boat he’s designed – UFOs, runabouts and platforms – attempts to be something special for the boaters.
“I guess I’m just interested in inspiring people around the products that I make,” Ruiter said. “People ask me what I do, and it’s sort of hard to answer that, because at the end of the day I make objects – but I feel I make experiences.”
Jruiter in the house
When he’s not meeting the high demands of the office furniture industry or shaking up the boating world, Joey Ruiter makes bird houses.
Even though his growing list of clients leaves him little time for spec work, Ruiter still manages to create whimsical objects d’art when ever he finds a moment.
He sometimes imposes arbitrary deadlines on himself for these creations. For Festival of the Arts last year, for example, he entered an ornate squirrel feeder in the Regional Arts Exhibition.
“ I need to leave room for myself to sort of create without any boundaries,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean sacrificing a commitment to sustainability. By sticking to 100 percent recyclable materials and simple manufacturing processes, Ruiter’s home and backyard accessories deliver style and conscience.
“For me, there’s really no purpose in the world for some of the things we surround ourselves with, so we shouldn’t wreck the world trying to make them,” Ruiter commented. “They’re just temporary fashion, but this is the type of stuff that big retailers will do whatever it takes to get out as cheaply as possible.” – Curt Wozniak
Popular Science | Nov 2007
The Aquatic Pod-Racer
A passerby recently asked Joey Ruiter where he found his aluminum-encased Star Wars pod-racer look-alike. “It’s from the future,” Ruiter replied. Apparently convinced the woman nodded and walked away.
A lifelong boater, Ruiter believes that manufacturers focus too much on creature comforts, at the expense of the the driving experience and environmental concerns. So the Grand Rapids, Michigan, product designer decided to try to create a scaled-down recreational boat that would handle like a small twin-engine airplane and could maneuver into hard-to-reach places typical cruisers can’t go. He stripped down two jet skis, built a cockpit, and worked with a local dune buggy shop to construct the frame that holds his 18-foot-long prototype together. For the three main sections, he cut and formed shells from aluminum, instead of fiberglass.
With no external propeller, the boat can run in as little as five inches of water. It’s green too, since Ruiter used all recyclable materials. Now he’s building a retractable hydrofoil, which would crank the top speed from an estimated 45 mph to over 65. – Gregory Mone
intersection, land, air & sea | Jun 2007
The Aquatic Front Runner
When Joey Ruiter’s not working on furniture, designing art or turning Alfa Romeos, he;s thinking about how we travel on the ocean. “I grew up in a beach community in Michigan. I’ve done everything stupid there is to do on the water. I simply wanted to do more.” His Front Runner was the solution. “When we were thinking how to design a new type of boat, we approached it from the point of what do we want to do. Personally, I want to go fast, but have lots of control like an airplane. I want to be able to pack a bag and go on an adventure where I may hit stuff, rocks or logs, and not have to worry. We then figured out how to do all that.” the pod-racer design seems to fulfill his wildest desires. With 450 hp delivered from twin jet engines tethered to the body like horses to a chariot, the Runner can certainly haul. It has a complicated foot pedal steering system that allows for changes in pitch, bank, heading, and the flat bottomed hull and hydrofoil allow for close to zero drag as well as the ability to go over things a curved hull couldn’t. It’s what all suburbanite fathers have been waiting for, an SUV for the water. – Frank Hentic
- Read Less
Grand Rapids Magazine | Jun 2007
Nucraft Design, Strategy
Tapping deign talent both locally and nationally set Nucraft up for an exciting product launches at NeoCon 2007.
Based in Comstock Park, the company tapped Grand Rapids designer Joey Ruiter for a new occasional table, bench and console collectively called Moment.
The handsome, well-scaled pieces may expand into a larger line for Nucraft in the future.
For View, a new occasional table, Nucraft turned again to well known NewYork designer Mark Goetz, whose designs for Nucraft’s Shine table won a Silver Best on NeoCon Award in 2006. Nucraft president Bob Bockheim described View as “very contemporary, light in scale and right in line with the direction of the company.”
Nucraft also plans to launch strategic expansions of its Saber conference collection by West Michigan designer Mitch Baker, and its Aerial line of casegoods. Saber will take on a more environmentally friendly focus through increased recycled content and the possible addition of rapidly renewable or Forest Stewardship Council-certified woods as an option. Aerial will offer a customized solution in response to the specific office needs of the legal profession.
Metropolis | Jun 2007
Rocking the Boat
The Front Runner is a bit of a vitamin-enriched soft drink: a healthier product for the market merely seeking gratification. “Boating is filled with hot-rodders and hillbillies who just want to go fast,” industrial designer Joey Ruiter says. “That’s who boat manufacturers are targeting. I’m saying that you can have the horsepower and the excitement, but you don’t have to be doing it the way you are today.”
That way involves copious amounts of fiberglass, which is manufactured with styrene, a toxin and potential carcinogen. “Making these boats is literally killing people,” Ruiter says. His aluminum hydrofoil concept reduces harmful emissions without sacrificing muscle: pulled by two independent four stroke engines, the Front Runner draws only a few inches of water, allowing it to go in shallow areas and clear normally crippling obstacles. Ruiter hopes this combination of performance and sustainability will be a wake-up call. “My clients in the contract-furniture industry are pushing me to do things environmentally,” he says. “I want to help another industry come out of the dark ages.” – Kristi Cameron
Go Boating | May 2007
Up, Up and Away!
Joey Ruiter has his heads in the clouds, and that is exactly where we hope it stays.
The young design principal of Jruiter Studio recently unveiled his winning concept boat design during Michigan’s Grand Rapids Boat Show.
Dubbed the “Front Runner,” Ruiter’s forward-mounted jet-drive watercraft looks like it would be equally at home in the skies (perhaps with the likes of Batman or James Bond at the helm) as it would be on water.
More aircraft than boat, it has an airplane-like steering system that allows for changes in heading, pitch and bank. Rear hydrofoils lift the body of the Front Runner out of the water, making it possible to navigate extremely shallow waters that would normally be inaccessible.
Twin, supercharged 215hp motors provide the 11-foot-long boat with enough power to satisfy those with the need for speed. And just in case you still aren’t impressed, it’s also made of entirely recyclable materials.
- Read Less