25th September 2008

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Jane Grant, HugX and product design lecture Justin Magee, University of Ulster,  prepare to “consumer test” the HugX pet food bowl with red setter,Emmy.

Designers at the University of Ulster have teamed up with Londonderry firm HugX to scoop a top award at New York’s Pet Fashion Week. 

Product design lecturers Justin Magee and Stephen McGilloway created a highly innovative and eye-catching pet food bowl from an idea by Jane Grant, head of HugX, a Derry pet firm.

The HugX bowl beat off stiff international competition from top designers including Italian design house, Alessi, to win the coveted ‘Lifestyle Innovation Award’ in the pet dinnerware category at the recent New York show. 

With its unique design, it is now fast becoming a must-have, albeit high-end, fashion accessory for pet lovers around the world. It is currently stocked in exclusive pet boutiques and gift stores in west coast America and New York. HugX has had orders from as far away as Australia and Brazil. 

The pet market, generally, has been growing rapidly around the world and is now recognized as a highly lucrative business. In the USA alone, it is worth $43.4 billion.

Jane Grant approached the two product design specialists, who are based at the University’s Magee campus, after watching her red setter repeatedly chase its bowl across the floor.

“I had some ideas that I thought would work but needed help to make them a reality.”

The lecturers, who are known as Bigsmall Design, developed a range of concepts, culminating in the prize-winning effective and attractive product.

Justin said: “Our work with HugX is a good example of how staff at the university can use their expertise to work in partnership with local companies to help them bring their ideas to fruition.” 

The award is the latest success for the two product design lecturers who provide design consultancy for a wide range of public and private sector organizations on both sides of the border.

Their portfolio includes new product concepts for international design projects such as Lego systems, the Smart car, Mercedes M Class, Audi A2 and Whale Pumps as well as helping to develop the HugX range. They have also been mentors for NORIBIC’s Technology Signpost programmes, the Western Innovation Network and the Creative Link initiative and are design consultants on the Invest NI Design Development Programme.

Hailed as a ‘total rethink in dog dining’ at the US event, the HugX bowl is angled in a way that allows the food always to fall into its centre. The innovative design keeps the bowl steady and prevents it toppling over and the bowl is also non-slip. That means the floor stays clean and noise of the traditional bowl being “chased” around the floor is done away with. Adding colour and stylish humour, the bowl’s grips are in the shape of a dog’s ears and tongue, and even the alluminum holder which holds the bowl takes on the character of a dog’s body. 

Justin says it has been a great team effort.  “Jane Grant, CEO of HugX, came to us with a series of design issues on the subject of pet dining from which we then developed a focused design brief.    

“We delivered a broad range of concepts and took the project through to prototype and to mass production. Tom Casey of Trufflepig - a graphic design company based in the Innovation Centre at  Magee - developed the product branding and packaging in tandem.” 

Jane says the successful partnership between the university, HugX and Trufflepig illustrates the wealth of creative talent in the North West.

She was “blown away with the quality of expertise available locally”. She added: “I would certainly encourage other entrepreneurs to try and tap into the expert help readily available to them in the north-west region.”

“The collaborative input of Justin Magee and Stephen McGilloway was critical for the success of the project, as was the valued expertise of Tom Casey of Trufflepig who helped with the company branding, and Invest NI and Noribic who were instrumental in getting the company off the ground.” 

HugX has plans to extend its product range with two new polymer base designs aimed at the Far Eastern market. This work was supported by the University’s Innovation Promoters Programme, sponsored by ILEX.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office, Department of Communication and Development
Tel: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk