February 24-March 2, 2005

cover story

Smarter by Design

space capsules: Mio Culture's Jaime (left) and Isaac Salm with their Capsule lamps and V2 3-D wallpaper (background). Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Fledgling Philadelphia design firm Mio Culture deals in big ideas.

by Brian Howard

In the cramped North 12th Street office/warehouse of Mio Culture, the tiny design firm's two partners are bristling with excitement. They speak hurriedly and gesture wildly like kids comparing Christmas morning hauls. While we're not discussing toys, we might as well be.

"You can bend it however you like," says Jaime Salm, 26, the firm's design brains, aka creative director, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. We're examining a flat sheet of steel that is also, surprisingly, a lampshade. The item, still in prototype, will come die-cut into arms, or branches, that allow the owner to bend it into any number of metallic sea anemone-like shapes. Jaime proudly points out that the middle circle (where the shade fits onto a lamp) pops out for use as a key chain.

The two-year-old Mio is run by Jaime and his brother Isaac, 27, the finance guy, or the "business managing director." They work in the realm of sustainable design, an ideology that preaches context in design and the use of local and environmentally friendly materials. Mio's small but growing collection of home flourishes is creating a stir in design circles, a stir that's on the brink of splashing into the consumer world.

The design firm's portfolio is impressive: 3-D wall tiles made of post- and preconsumer waste-paper; two different lamps (a hanging capsule lamp and a floor accent lamp) pressed from hat forms at a local millinery; a portable, ergonomic spun-aluminum "stoop" that draws inspiration from Eastern culture's views on seating; and recycled-felt wall pockets for keeping clutter at bay. While products made of wastepaper or recycled felt might sound, well, ugly, consider that the company's products are already being carried by many small boutiques, and are available online at Edge Modern and Target's Red Hot Shop. When Neiman Marcus unveiled its fall Armani collection nationwide, Mio's V2 wall tiles were part of the displays. The company's designs have been featured in Metropolis and ReadyMade magazines and earned best collection honors at the recent New York International Gift Fair.

Quietly, Mio has become one of modern design's hottest properties, all from a little office just north of Chinatown.

The children of a cardboard manufacturer and a psychologist, the Salms are Colombians who came to America for college. Isaac graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in economics and finance. Jaime (pronounced hy-me) is a 2001 graduate of the University of the Arts' industrial design program. In South America, Jaime was a sculptor. "I would walk around and buy junk. I had an electric welder and I used it to make abstract sculpture," he explains of his early art. "I had a teacher who said, "You should check out industrial design. It's what you do, but it's functional.'"

Mio "came right out of my thesis furnishings made of wastepaper," says Jaime.

His education has helped him hone his eye for the discarded; it's important to consider when designing things that will also, eventually, be discarded.

"Trash, and old furniture that people throw away how it's broken tells a story," says Jaime of how garbage-day strolls can inspire him as much as the art of favorites Antonio Gaudi and David Smith. "You have to wonder, "How do things lose value so quickly?'"

The solution isn't to always make products that are built to last. "It would be erroneous to approach [all] things that way," he explains.

"Ours is the only company whose products come with assembly, disassembly and recycling instructions," says Jaime proudly.

"One of our core fundamentals is information," says Isaac, who left a position at Kimberly-Clark to join his brother full time. "If you teach people, you will have a different relationship."

Not only are the Salms intent on disseminating information with their products, they're more than happy to pick it up where they can. They've gleaned more than a few tricks from their local suppliers and manufacturers. For instance, when they were running into trouble figuring out how to attach elastic to their capsule lamp, the millinery suggested "we just perforate the felt," recalls Jaime.

"You have to do more with what you have," figures Isaac, not only about Mio, but about culture in general.

"There is no reason to send [production] out to China, there are so many resources [here] that are untapped," adds Jaime. "You have to rethink how you do business."

It's a process Mio undertakes constantly.

"We rebrand the company every year," says Jaime. And while it's part of Mio's eight-year business plan to have a retail store, they see Mio as more than a product incubator.

Half of the business is what's dubbed the "Culture Lab," a think tank whose purpose is to work with companies with specific sustainability challenges, or who want to change the direction of their corporate culture.

"A lot of [sustainable design consultants] will say, "Here, invest $1 million and change your culture and you'll be fine,'" says Jaime of an approach that's generally not feasible. "You have to first ask, "What do you have?' We'll put you in a different direction."

While the Salms' lips are sealed in regard to their ongoing Culture Lab projects, one experiment that recently saw light was Mio's work with financial media giant Bloomberg. When a change in logo rendered reams of the company's business cards, memo paper and brochures obsolete, it turned to Mio, which used the recycled paper to create "130 or so" backless office chairs.

Which explains why Jaime sees their future retail operation as less a store and "more of a lab for people to try out our products," he says. "We love customer feedback. It would be something you'd go to to experience and enjoy" rather than a place to simply shop.

In the more immediate future, Jaime continues to cook up new product ideas. Along with the steel lamp and an updated version of the 3-D wall tiles, "We'll have a seating product — the Bale Chair," Jaime says of a chair that will also serve as storage for old books and other reading materials. "The idea behind it is that people have all their things at home, magazine collections, encyclopedias, old notebooks that have sentimental value. It's sitting there, and it's beautiful. But it loses purpose and relevance. This product will allow people to reuse these things."

He and Isaac hope to have the Bale Chair and the rest of the new product line ready for May's International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, the site of the company's coming-out party two years ago.

Ideas continue to swirl around Mio. The Culture Lab is working on an interactive media browsing station; Jaime is presently fascinated with the idea of merging technology with furniture: "How does your furniture know you're there? And how does it react?"

But for the time being, the two-man operation is trying to adhere to its own design philosophies, to grow in a way that's also sustainable.

"For now, the trick is keeping things tight," figures Jaime. "I think if you grow too quickly, or if you grow too slowly, it's not good. It's a critical moment that we do things right. Sales are starting to grow. People are starting to notice what we do. It's exciting. [But] we have to take steps, baby steps."

For more information on Mio, visit www.mioculture.com.