Designed in Indiana: first-ever exhibition showcasing Indiana designers and their creations.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Cover Story

EVERYONE KNOWS INDIANA IS a leader in manufacturing, but how many are aware of the breadth and depth of Hoosier product design?

From telephones to TVs, pots and pans to high chairs and office chairs, products conceived in Indiana are diverse, high-tech and cutting-edge. And the state is brimming with opportunity, most Hoosier designers believe.

"There's a lot of solid design work going on in Indiana," says Judd Lord, industrial designer at Indianapolis' Delta Faucet Co. "We definitely can compete on a global scale when it comes to good design."

Indiana's opportunities were enough to lure Marcus Koepke from Boston nine years ago to operate his own business, Marcus Curtis Design, in Indianapolis. "I was designing computers and wanted to design something more sculptural," he says. "The office-furniture industry is central to Indiana, Iowa and Michigan, so not knowing where my clients would be, I thought I'd move to the middle."

Today, he's specializing in seating, with clients that include Allsteel Inc. in Muscatine, Iowa, and Indiana manufacturers Kimball International and National Office Furniture, among others

Another entrepreneur, Kevin Ackeret, president of Ackeret Engineering, admits he faced some doubters when he launched his business in 1996. "When I first started working with a group of investors, they said, 'You can't grow a design firm in a cornfield.' We've been in business in Seymour eight years now, with a staff of eight industrial designers, mechanical engineers, associate engineers and prototype technicians."

A contract design and product development firm, Ackeret currently works with clients in Minneapolis, San Diego, Seattle and Dallas, as well as in Indiana.

INDIANA DESIGN ON DISPLAY

Evidence supporting these designers' claims about their profession's viability in Indiana is now in the spotlight at the state's first-ever exhibition showcasing product designers and their creations. Conceived and curated by the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette and open for public viewing there through April 10, the "INDesign Indiana Product Design Exhibition" features 60 juried entries from 25 companies--nearly all designed in Indiana, many also manufactured in the state, with a sampling created by native Hoosiers now living elsewhere. The show emphasizes currently available consumer products--just a portion of the types of products being designed in the state.

The art museum venue pleases such designers as Lord, Koepke and Ackeret. "This show...