About Product Placement

Too often products are dismissed as just something there to be consumed. Their amazing back-stories-the inspiration, intent, material choices, alterations, and lessons learned-remain known only to a select few. Product Placement aims to change that. A lively and interactive way to share the process behind a product, the event concentrates on how and why items came to be, getting practitioners and fans alike to talk, laugh, and think about the design process.

Each installment of Product Placement is oriented around a theme, and features multiple designers from a range of fields and at different stages in their careers, as well as a design buyer or retailer. Each practitioner gives a five-minute talk about one of his or her products, touching on its inspirations-anything from a picture, a slide, or a physical prototype to a fabric's texture, a piece of music, or a smell - and the development process. After each presentation, audience members have a few minutes to ask questions before the next speaker comes on. In all, no presenter will be on stage for more than 10 minutes.

Product Placement was founded by Kimberly Oliver and Julie Taraska. To be considered for a future Product Placement or to find out more, reach them at thisisproductplacement@gmail.com.

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A certified design junkie, Kimberly Oliver works with both emerging and established designers and retailers to strategically raise awareness of their businesses. She has been in the design industry since the early 1990's, when a job at an architecture firm in San Francisco led to a marketing role for a Herman Miller dealer (where she fell deeply in love with the work of Charles and Ray Eames). In 2002, Kimberly moved to New York for the launch of Vitra's retail presence, and then spent two years with Design Within Reach before launching her design marketing/PR consultancy AmericanSuccessMachinery. She publicized the ICFF offsites Joint Venture and Living Spaces in 2004, and produced Joint Venture 2005 and Firstop: Williamsburg Public in 2006. She is a founder and co-curator of the sustainable design exhibit HauteGREEN. In 2007 she rejoined DWR and now manages public relations for the company. Kimberly was born and raised in rural Maine, and has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Vassar College.

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Julie Taraska can thank the Sex Pistols for her career, as it was after winning a fellowship to study British punk that she moved to London and began writing professionally. Upon returning to the States, she spent a half-dozen years covering music and developing magazines before she realized design was, and still is, the new punk rock. So back to England she went, receiving an M.A. from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2002 before moving on to senior editorial positions at Metropolis and Home magazines. Currently she writes about products, interiors, green design, and travel for the New York Times, Men's Vogue, Metropolis, and icon. Her work has appeared in over two-dozen publications, and she is a contributing editor to four books. She lives in New York with her husband, Greg, and ever-shedding cat, Colonel.