The clothing hanger is a ubiquitous part of our daily life. We use it everyday, at home, at work, on vacation and while shopping. It is a commodity that has been vilified and ignored, but somehow an integral part of our psyche. Its design has changed little over the years. It’s always there and it’s always unsatisfying. And there’s a disconnect somehow with hangers. Look in anyone’s closet to see the unsatisfying tangled miasma of designs and materials. Hangers are more of a collection of whatever is on hand than a conscientious collection of what works and what looks good.
Considered such a low peg on the industrial design scale of worthiness, the hanger has sadly been ignored. Hanger companies thrive on its invisibility, churning out the same product for retail use year after year after year by the billions.
But now there’s a new breed of designers taking on the much maligned hanger. A new show at Georgia Institute of Technology brings together an wide swath of creative minds who’ve taken on the humble hanger. Assembled by GIT’s History of Modern Design Class for the Spring of 2009, the collection includes hangers made out of paper, bottle brushes, stainless steel and inflatable plastic.
Ditto Hangers is very happy to be a big part of that group of innovative thinkers who feel that even the hanger deserves a proper, intelligent design. Our revolutionary Ditto Paper Hangers and our award-winning PET Plastic line are featured in this fun and far-reaching exhibit.
The curator for the show writes:
This exhibition could just as easily be about forks. Or staplers. Or task lamps for that matter. All of these items have covertly infiltrated your daily existence. They are blades of grass in the landscape of your object environment. Yet designers will look at such mundane things and recognize that they can be more than what they normally are. Off the Hook aims to celebrate one of the most overlooked and unconsidered objects: the clothes hanger
Hangers are one of the simplest tools we come into contact with each day, yet when we look at new ways designers have imagined them, they can speak volumes about design. Off the Hook not only gives a visual overview of contemporary hanger design, but it gives the viewer insight into how a designer's mind works; a designer is always looking for ways to improve or add excitement to even the most basic products. If designers can do this with a clothes hanger, think of what they can do with a fork-lift or a sky scrapper.
Why clothes hangers? The clothes hanger is always there for us; it creates order in one of the most treacherous parts of our homes: the closet. Forget Joan Crawford. And pro-choice rallies. Its is time to give credit to the humble hanger and to the designers who have re-imagined them in ways that give pause and delight. You'll never think of you closet the same way again.
http://offthehook-
http://www.dittohangers.com
About Ditto Hangers
Ditto Hangers conceives, designs, manufactures, and markets personal and retail hangers and displays that are less harmful to the environment. We focus on existing products and/or systems and redesign them so they are compatible with the increasing emphasis for green compliance. Ditto Hanger’s highly-designed products incorporate recycled, recyclable, rapidly renewable and/or bio-based materials, and replace toxic and non-sustainable materials with organic or natural alternatives, including inks, dyes, and adhesives. Ditto Hangers is a proudly green product line by GreenHeart Global, Inc., a California based corporation with headquarters in Oakland, California and offices in Hong Kong.
http://www.greenheartglobal.com
