#30 Loop Mount
Listen to Alex’s Story
We’re back! This week Ben is joined by the founder of Loop Mount - an innovative bike phone mount. Ben and Alex talk all things industrial design, crowdfunding, creative collaboration, as well as as the importance of model making. Enjoy!
This week Ben spoke to Alex, the founder of Loop Mount - an innovative bike phone mount “that doesn’t like one”. Alex has a vast array of experience in industrial design and product development, “my background is industrial design - I've worked for various different studios in Europe and the states most recently in quite a big studio in London and at that studio we went for two kind of clients really - working for very big tech companies that we'd often do as a blue sky projects and kind of big thinking for them about where technology was going, what products might exist. Then we also work for lots and lots of hardware start-ups and their needs were quite different really they just needed someone to help realise an idea. My background really is working on those two different types of projects and helping people realise physical products and manufacture them”.
As well developing his own innovative products Alex also works with other companies to help them realise their ideas. “We’re two companies in one really - we are a design consultancy called Approach and then we have another company that creates the actual product, so you know with Approach people come to us and we help them design things. The other company is called Alternative Works which Loop Mount is part - that manufactures its own products. The thing that ties all our products together is that they are new takes on what products could be I think that's kind of what we try to build into all our stuff really”.
“The thing that ties all our products together is that they are new takes on what products could be”
Alex’s most successful project to date is the Loop Mount. “Loop Mount is basically a new type of phone mount for bikes its as simple as that really. It's quite different from the kind of phone mounts that you might have seen if you see a delivery driver on the street outside they’ve probably got big plastic phone holder that looks a little bit like something you get in a car. Loop mount is more like a kind of metal ring that sits on the bars of the bike, and it closes up into very compact shape - so it's kind of a reinvention of what a phone mount can be on a bike”.
The hope for Alternative Works is that Loop Mount is just the start of something even more successful. “Our hope is that Loop Mount is just the start - we've got a tonne of different projects and work in the pipeline and the idea is that Alternative Works will grow into this kind of family of products and some of them will be within cycling and we hope some of them are within other areas. So I think hopefully that structure will make more sense as we get bigger and hopefully more successful”.
“Our hope is that Loop Mount is just the start - we've got a tonne of different products and work in the pipeline”
Alex and the Alternative Works team really value the importance of physical model exploration when developing a new product. “For a long time I taught product design at university - one of the things I used to have really kind of drill into my students was the important of model making and I think when they first started learning about product design and industrial design all they want to do is jump on a computer and produce a really great render because to them that felt professional. I've always really pushed back on that in my career because I think that just ends up as a kind of styling exercise and that's absolutely not what we do you know I'm really interested in creating new products that didn't exist before. So really challenging what things are and its very hard to do that straight onto computer so I've always advocated an approach where you create physical prototypes first of all and then once you have a rough idea of how it should work. Then you kind of graduate to a computer and I think it's something that I've felt more and more strongly about as I've actually progressed during my career and you know I now kind of take pride really in presenting to companies with card board prototypes because I just really genuinely believe it's the best way to produce good work”.
The Loop Mount Studio is based in Containerville in East London, a community of start-up and creative businesses. “So we're in a development of shipping containers in Bethnal Green in east London and it's the kind of I guess a community of people and start ups and very small businesses most of which were just getting going really like us. It's really interesting because it's a really interesting blend of people all of whom are trying to get their businesses and get them up and running and I think you know the nice thing about it is that their slightly kind of co-dependent in the sense that you know we do our laser cutting downstairs with a company, we do our 3D printing with another company, we’re probably going to work with the film company which is in another container 3 doors over to make the film so you know they've become these kind of mini communities of that people who are just getting going and it’s both practically helpful but also quite an inspiring place to be.”
“I take pride in presenting to companies with cardboard prototypes because I genuinely believe it's the best way to produce good work”
It is no surprise that the process of developing the Loop Mount wasn’t simple. “It’s really interesting because you know what your priorities are – we wanted it be as small as possible, we know we wanted to feel like it's like it’s a bike component right not like a kind of plastic phone holder for a car that someone's just happened to clip on a bike, we know we want it to be circular and want it to work with the with the handlebars, we know we want to make it as compact as possible - so those things are you're kind of aims in the project but when it comes down to the kind of crunch of it you have to go through hundreds and hundreds of decisions to make that happen and you have to argue with manufacturers about tiny little details about why you want to make something 0.9mm instead of 1mm because that kind of 0.1mm difference will then mean you can move a hinge over there which will then mean it can open slightly wider which will then mean you can fit an iPhone Max in - so all of these decisions are interrelated. It's quite interesting really you start with very lofty ideals and then you get down to these kinds of tiny little decisions that just have numbers attached to them and you're trying to make all these things align”.
After a successful few years Alex and the team have high ups for the future and will be releasing a new product very soon. “So I'm sat next to the prototype of our new product which we’re hopefully going to be bringing to Kickstarter in June so we're going to be releasing a bit more information about the next week so keep a look out on our website for that!”.
Thank you so much to Alex for inviting us to Loop Mount HQ. Check out their website here.
Ben Stuart • Joseph Caden • Create More • 2021