Sink Station

The Project

Sinkstation is a flat colander that won’t take up lots of space in the cupboard. Placed at the base of your kitchen sink, it will catch peelings and food as you prepare, keeping everything together and preventing the plughole from getting blocked.“The CAD images made my product exist virtually before it actually did which enabled me to present my idea to a number of different companies. This means that you aren’t just describing it to companies or showing them an A4 piece of paper with a biro drawing on it, you give them a 3D realistic design of the product so they can see it. It really helped move things along.”

Client: Damon Meredith

www.newsoda.co.uk Sinkstation has a patent pending in the USA and in the UK.

The challenge

Having prepared his evening meal, Damon came back to the kitchen to deal with cleaning up. The sink was filled with vegetable peelings, food waste and water. After having to fish out the stainless steel plug and scoop out all the bits of waste, he decided to look for a product which would catch the waste before it reached the plughole.

The Innovate Solution

Having failed to find an existing product on the market, Damon decided to come up with his own invention. After completing a thorough patent search to see what existing patents and products were on the market, the results were discussed before deciding the best way to proceed.It was decided that it should be fairly simple to develop the product idea and Innovate’s team of designers were engaged in order turn Damon’s sketch into something more realistic to present to industry. Concepts were produced and Damon’s preferred iteration decided upon. From here, this concept was developed using software to produce high quality rendered visualizations of the Sinkstation.Damon then proceeded to apply for patent protection on his invention to ensure that this was not copied before he began to test the market.

The Process

With Innovate Design’s help and advice Damon was able to:Understand the potential market for the Sinkstation productLook at the most suitable form of intellectual property protection for the productDevelop a number of potential concepts for the ideaHave photorealistic CAD visualizations using design softwareGet advice in terms of the patenting of the ideaUnderstand the potential routes to market and potential obstacles to overcomeReceive continued support with the development of the product once launched

The Results

Since the launch of the Sinkstation, the product is now selling worldwide through a global distributor, as well as in popular retailers such as Port-Style, John Lewis, Lakeland and Robert Dyas. Sinkstation was also a winner at the 2012 Excellence in Housewares Awards.