Making Reality Out of Images : Tiny RKS Design Turns Ideas Into Attractive, Workable, Consumer-Friendly Products

What do designer dog food dishes, fetal monitoring systems and Teddy Ruxpin have in common?

A tiny industrial design firm based in Canoga Park, RKS Design.

Founded in 1980 by former Xerox Corp. designer Ravi Sawhney, 37, RKS has worked for such big corporations as Rubbermaid Inc. and Sega of America, as well as entrepreneurs in fields ranging from health care to virtual-reality arcade games.

With just $1.2 million in revenue in 1993 and fees ranging from $5,000 to $300,000, RKS is part of a small but significant link in the product development chain. Across the country there are perhaps hundreds of mostly small firms specializing in taking the blueprints of corporate scientists and engineers and turning them into attractive, workable, consumer-friendly products. Their work is more in demand because the recession and corporate downsizing of the past few years has left many businesses without much of the in-house talent needed to create new products.

Meanwhile, competitive pressures are increasing to bring products to market more quickly. That means using more hired guns who can turn out workable product designs in shorter time spans.

What’s more, many product makers are turning to firms like RKS simply for a fresh point of view. “What often happens with technology,” explained Sawhney, “is that without having some industrial designer on staff, some advocate of the consumer’s position, it becomes engineered products developed by engineers for engineers.”

Sawhney and his staff of eight, by contrast, try to inject the point of view of the buyer--what Sawhney calls “the mother-in-law litmus test.”

Customers come to RKS at various stages of conceptualizing new products. The design firm will produce elaborate drawings suggesting how the product might look and function. Those renderings--usually a combination of computer-generated and hand-drawn designs--lead to a series of models, then a prototype and manufacturing specifications.

Sawhney founded RKS after leaving Xerox and striking out on his own as an industrial designer. First working out of his parents’ Reseda house and helped by his wife, Bharti, a chemist, Sawhney slowly built a clientele of mostly local high-tech and medical companies. Bharti has since returned to teaching and RKS moved to its current location in 1983, where Sawhney built a custom-designed office and studio.

Since then, RKS has worked on a surprisingly wide array of products. One of its first big breaks came in 1985, when RKS helped design the Teddy Ruxpin talking stuffed bear, which became one of the biggest-selling toys ever.

Worlds of Wonder Inc., then a new toy company with limited funds, needed a working prototype fast. RKS got the job in April; by the year’s end, Teddy’s sales reached $93 million. RKS shaved about $4 million from the manufacturing costs in that first year alone, Sawhney said, by designing a new eject mechanism for the bear doll’s cassette tape. Yet RKS received only $50,000 for its work. Nonetheless, Sawhney was happy with the visibility it brought his young firm.

Since then, RKS projects have included a fetal monitoring system for Tokos Medical Corp.; a computerized children’s learning device for Apple Computer Inc.; a stereo speaker system for Harman International Industries Inc., and a system used by doctors to program pacemakers for Siemens Pacesetter Inc. RKS has also designed dog and cat bowls with rubber tabs on the bottom to prevent sliding, a spill-proof beverage container and a new exercise product for the makers of Thigh Master.

Pam Schulz, vice president of marketing at MicroComputer Accessories Inc., a Rubbermaid Inc. subsidiary, said RKS is working with her company’s designers to fashion a line of computer and office products. “Five or 10 years ago, the user was just looking for functionality,” she said. “Today, design is becoming ever more important in the types of products we bring to market.”

For a small firm like Norman Enterprises Inc., a Burbank maker of photographic equipment, outside design firms are needed to help turn engineers’ ideas into practical models, said Al Williams, Norman’s engineering manager. On a new Norman photographic lamp system, for instance, RKS suggested an easier-to-use latch and a way of housing the electronics in a small area that’s easy to identify.

But just as opportunities for design firms are growing, so are the costs of the computer-aided design equipment they increasingly rely on.

“It used to be that you’d hire a designer, buy drawing boards and a few pencils,” said Michael Nuttall, design director at IDEO Product Development in Palo Alto, one of the nation’s largest industrial design companies with about 170 employees. “Now when you hire new designers, you’re looking at at least $50,000 in new equipment.”

Sawhney said he’s determined to have the best technology, despite the cost. Three of RKS’ four computer workstations are capable of creating three-dimensional models, which cuts the time needed to design a finished product to a fraction of what it takes using a standard 2-D system. Sawhney plans to add three more 3-D machines--at $70,000 apiece. Many design firms still don’t have 3-D computer modeling, but Sawhney believes “it’s an investment you make if you’re looking at growth.”

RKS is also hoping to win jobs by offering a broad range of services.

One example of RKS’ breadth of expertise, Sawhney said, came last year, when it designed equipment for a virtual-reality computer game for VR8, a Chatsworth start-up firm. These types of games are the new rage in interactive entertainment, but they typically involve heavy headgear that players wear to immerse themselves in a simulated, 3-D environment.

RKS tried to solve the problem of the cumbersome headsets by designing the helmet to be suspended from above and pivot easily as a player’s head moves. Also, because VR8 wants to sell the game to arcades, where kids sometimes take out their frustrations on the equipment, RKS designers literally beat prototypes of the stainless-steel system with a baseball bat to ensure it would hold up to abuse.

Another testament to RKS’ success in diversifying, Sawhney said, is that the giant video-game maker Sega of America picked the firm to help develop a new interactive toy line.

For these toys, which are under wraps for the next few months, Sega wanted something strikingly different--”cool stuff,” said Wes Thomas, engineering manager for Sega’s toy division. “But I don’t have a group of industrial designers, nor do I have the time to hire a big research group to study and decide what to do.”

Thomas said he chose RKS because of its experience and cutting-edge designs. “A lot of design firms just put things out,” he said. “They’re in rut, they just have their signature look.”

And many firms make beautiful renderings, he said, “but they really don’t get the strategy. The thing that impresses me about RKS is they get it.”

Despite Sawhney’s hope to compete with bigger, better-known design firms, he intends to limit RKS’ growth. He sees revenues reaching $2 million within a year or two, and plans to add five more designers. But to get much bigger, he said, would mean sacrificing his personal involvement with clients.

Sawhney also will only occasionally accept equity positions in entrepreneurial companies or royalties instead of fees. Though he could have made a bundle if he’d had a stake in Teddy Ruxpin or other hot-selling products, he prefers to stay focused on what he loves best--the design process.