Bill Grant, principal of Grant Design Collaborative, creative force behind Set Wallcovering Systems and current president of AIGA, is a man who has looked at design though a kaleidoscope and seen the multitude of ways designers can implement their thinking in previously unthought-of areas. With his broad vision, Grant has set himself a place at the head of the product development table with his clients—and not just by achieving success with a new line of wallcovering products his firm designed. He has changed the face of an entire product sector while pushing himself and his firm into new and exciting territories.

So how does a design firm shift so successfully and immediately from brochures and showrooms to product design and distribution? Grant’s answer is having years of experience. Grant has worked in commercial furnishings since the beginning of his career. From his early days out of college working at a carpet company to his firm’s more recent work with brands like Herman Miller and Steelcase, Grant and his team have developed a thorough understanding of which products and marketing strategies succeed, how commercial finishing companies traditionally work and how players in this industry like to be communicated with. So when Robert Moore, Jr., the president of Genesys Interiors, a successful commercial wallcovering distributor, approached Grant to rebrand his company, Grant challenged him on the brief. He wasn’t convinced a rebrand was the best way to approach the market at the time.

Commercial wallcovering as a category had been declining for years, losing a large share of the business to paint companies. Additionally, distributors were all carrying one another’s products, and there was a great deal of repetition within those offerings. When Grant asked Moore why he felt his company needed rebranding, Moore responded that he wanted to remain relevant and bring Genesys “into this century.”

The Set website is built so designers can virtually install products and see how different offerings work together.

Knowing that rebranding is often viewed as a quick fix for a lack of timeliness, Grant suggested a more thoughtful approach— one requiring a large investment on everyone’s part, including his own. He asked if Moore would be interested in launching an exclusive collection of products, a new national brand they would distribute for themselves and for others … the difference being that this product would be built on innovative design thinking, from product to branding to packaging and distribution. Grant explains, “I noticed that product design and development were always separate from marketing and communications, which was separate from sales, so I said, ‘What if you connect the dots in that whole ecosystem?’ I was intrigued with the idea of designing a whole path for a product from the very beginning—from the original brand strategy, the product design strategy, how we took it to market, even up to designing a new distribution model for it.” To Grant’s delight, Moore agreed.

A CAREFULLY CRAFTED FOUNDATION
Before diving into the design work Grant Collaborative conducted extensive research. By interviewing, observing and filming designers and architects at work, the team was able to outline the problems —and thus the opportunities—within this saturated product sector. As it turns out, saturation was their key to differentiation.

The typical approach in commercial wallcovering is to produce a pattern in a popular theme, such as paisley, in as many colors as possible. The reality, however, is that most people will choose an earth tone or a neutral, so something like 85 percent of commercial wallcoverings never see the light of day. Because of this scattershot approach, designers must slog through oceans of product in hopes of finding what they’re looking for. Grant chose a different strategy altogether. “The approach we’ve taken is editing that whole scenario down to a very targeted audience; in the case of Set it’s the top 100 architectural and interior designers in the U.S. We used research and design thinking to figure out what they wanted and what they needed so we could connect their wants and needs with products. What we did was create less product but sell more of it to the right people.”

Although this philosophy sounds rather simple, it actually required a different approach on almost every level from what was being offered, including how those offerings related to one another and how they were physically presented and sold to interior designers.

With the ability to choose patterns in two scales as well as in a variety of hues from the Grant color system, designers can easily find complementary wallcoverings that, when paired, give a room energy and dramatic dimension.

TACKLING COLOR FRUSTRATIONS
The first and most basic element to address was color, often the first decision made when designing an interior. Generally a color is chosen and the rest of the furnishing and finishing choices fall in around that. But when interviewed, designers spoke of the distinct lack of saturated colors available in wall coverings, thus reducing their ability to create a dramatic look. Another frustration was that often a product would be in the right color family, but it wasn’t the right value—and the designer had no ability to dial that up or down.

To confront these challenges, the firm developed the Grant Color System, which is made up of the seven most prominent color families in commercial interiors. Each of the seven families begins with a very saturated hue and is followed with four derivatives of the original color, making a total of five in each family. Each color is an equal percentage away from the next, starting with the most saturated and working down to an off-white version of that hue. The result is 35 colors that relate to each other and provide designers with an endless number of combinations.

MULTICOLORS DRIVE MULTIPRODUCTS
With the palette firmly established, the design team shifted its focus to the next task: using the Grant Color System to build a collection of unique and sophisticated offerings that again give designers a greater variety of options. Within the commercial interior sector there are wild fluctuations in types of spaces, both in terms of dimension as well as function. Clearly, one product was not going to provide designers with the creative freedom they so craved. To counter this, Grant and his team developed several products including traditional patterned wallcoverings, murals, custom non-repeating illustrations designed for corridors of any length and WriteWalls, a dry-erase material perfectly suited for brainstorming spaces. They then created a kit of parts by offering each of the products in the 35 colors from the Grant Color System as well as providing customers with the ability to produce each product in custom colors. Four of the five wallcovering patterns are also available in two different scales. With each of these incremental offerings, designers can tweak the look they are seeking in a way they have never been able to do in the past; such color and scale options had never been available, and there had never been a system of easily locating elements that work together. The system allows designers to find one element, then locate companion pieces that are also the right hue or value.

TOP: The Set line of products is unlike anything else available in interior design. Its ease of use, attention to high quality and sense of elegance have made it resonate with many designers.