Leslie Carothers Partners With Thompson For AI Designed Sink
World’s First AI Designed Sink To Debut At KBIS 2024.
Digital marketing expert Leslie Carothers’ text prompts to MidJourney’s artificial intelligence bot led to the design of this sink to be made in the real world by Thompson, debuting at a reveal party in Thompson’s exhibitor space at the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s annual tradeshow in February of 2024.
The sink will be made of solid copper by the artisans the Thompson family employs in Santa Clara del Cobre, Mexico, who have been making copper items for the home since the 16th century.
THE BACKSTORY
The story of how and why the Thompson family chose Leslie for this historic collaboration is an interesting one.
Leslie has long had an interest in the virtual world, which began in late 2008 when she held the first product development experiment in collaboration with Rob Sligh, then the CEO of Sligh Furniture, in the virtual world [ now called metaverse ] of Second Life.
At that time, she was writing the Retail Ideas column for Furniture Today Magazine’s digital version, and you can still read the article she wrote about this product development experiment here.
Fast forward a dozen years and in 2020, she was the co-principal with Gary Pettitt in Seasonal Living Magazine’s virtual designer showhouse - the world’s first designer virtual showhouse to be built only in the virtual world and the first and still only one to include augmented reality - a collaboration between 15 sponsoring brands [ two of whom were kitchen and bath brands: Signature Kitchen Suite and Cosentino ] and 11 interior designers. You can read more about it here on the blog of Jeanne Chung of Cozy Stylish Chic, who was one of the 11 designers.
In early 2023, Leslie began actively experimenting with MidJourney’s artificial intelligence bot, at first to get design ideas for her own bedroom. She was amazed at how fast - a minute or less - and how easy it was to get excellent visual ideas and images. She began learning more and more and went down the rabbit hole of playing and conceptualizing design ideas with MidJourney. She also began sharing some of these images online and in her private Facebook community for interior designers, #DesignWealth.
Then, when she was asked to be a headline speaker at the inaugural Vacation Rental Design Summit, held in High Point, NC 2 days prior to the beginning of Spring 2023 High Point Market, she used AI generated images in her presentation.
She discussed how AI generated images could be used for content as well as for part of the ideation process for designers who had vacation rental design clients in a hurry. See 2 slides from her presentation below. One being the opening slide, and both containing images created by her text prompts to MidJourney. [ For anyone interested in learning how to use Midjourney, her free tutorial blog is here. ]
Andrew Holben, the Director of Marketing and Sales for Thompson, was volunteering at the VRD Summit. He had also long had an interest in all things virtual - blockchain, NFT’s, metaverse activations and AI. When he heard Leslie speak about AI generated imagery, a lightbulb went off for him and he had an idea.
He didn’t mention anything about his idea, though, to Leslie at that time, nor was it brought up to Leslie during the 2.5 day weekend retreat the Thompson family underwrote for 10 of Leslie’s Texas based design friends in May of 2023.
It wasn’t until June 14th, 2023, when Thompson Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Alejandra Thompson de Jordan, emailed Leslie with a subject line that said, Crazy Idea? that this collaboration was born.
Leslie had goosebumps reading this email and immediately picked up the phone and said a resounding “YES.”
From there, during several all night sessions on Midjourney entering many different variations of text prompts, she received back the sink image you see in this post - the sink she felt best represented her personal design aesthetic and one she would be proud to own. However, she still needed to present it to Thompson to see if they liked it enough to produce it and luckily, they did.
However, one last hurdle remained. Could it actually be made?
Thompson’s online portal for their custom Tailor Made Design program for designers [ visit it here ] allowed Leslie to easily enter in the information and the image of the imagined sink so that it could be sent to their manufacturing team for review.
The answer came back within 24 hours, “Yes, our artisans can make this and here’s the price.” Leslie and the Thompsons were thrilled.
And now, this historic sink - the first in the world to have been designed by AI and produced by real world artisans - will debut at #KBIS2024 in Las Vegas in the Thompson exhibitor space at the National Kitchen and Bath Show in February 2024.
If you are reading this and want to write about and/or discuss this further, please email Thompson’s head of public relations, William [Bill] Bramlett Cook, at wbc@thompsontraders.com.
Leslie and the Thompsons are very grateful to the design news site, Business of Home, for breaking the story on June 27th to their audience here.
LOOKING AHEAD TO NEW REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRAND/DESIGNER COLLABORATIONS
What new revenue opportunities does this collaboration between Leslie and Thompson open for all designers and custom manufacturers? And why is working with AI different than designing any custom product?
This collaboration means that any designer, anywhere in the world, who learns to use Midjourney, can co-create a custom product [ in 1 minute ] and submit it to any custom manufacturer for a quote for production. The image, which is immediately generated by MidJourney, is copyright free and available to use for publicity and marketing.
It allows any designer to co-create bespoke products with imagery, very quickly, which can be sold to their clients privately and to consumers through their online shops and social media channels without any initial inventory investment.
The caveat is that AI generated images are not always exactly reproducible in the real world [ although for upholstery, cabinetry and occasional furniture this wouldn’t hold true] so that aspect needs to be thought through carefully.
For instance, the AI sink image Thompson is producing does not have a drain, so that aspect of the design will change a bit to accommodate a real world drain.
INTERESTED IN LEARNING HOW TO USE MIDJOURNEY TEXT PROMPTS?
If you are interested in learning how to use Midjourney text prompts and how this ties into metaverse activations, another part of the Web3 ecosystem that is changing the way the next generation of consumers expect to interact with luxury brands, Leslie and metaverse architect, Annilee Waterman, have been offering monthly workshops. The next one will be Thursday, July 13th from 2-4 pm CT.
You can register for this workshop [ it’s $149.00 ] and all future monthly workshop on Leslie’s website link:
https://savourpartnership.com/workshops.
INTERESTED IN DESIGNING YOUR OWN CUSTOM ITEM WITH THOMPSON?
If you’re a designer reading this article, the first step in working with Thompson to design a custom item is to open an account with them, which can be done here. If you own a brick and mortar showroom [ and want credit terms ] the first step is opening an account with them here.
Once your account has been approved, the next step is submitting your design via their online web portal, to their Tailor Made program, which can be done on this link:
https://thompsontraders.com/tailor-made/.
You will get your answer back within 24 hours, with pricing.
It’s that easy.
Leslie and the Thompson family hope you are as excited about this historic collaboration as they are - and the opportunities it unlocks for all custom manufacturers, showrooms and designers - and look forward to seeing many of you at the National Kitchen and Bath Show next February in Las Vegas for the BIG REVEAL of the world’s first sink to have been co-created with an artificial intelligence bot and produced by a custom manufacturer.
For press inquires to Leslie: leslie@savoupartnership.com
For the full press release and press inquires to Thompson: wbc@thompsontraders.com
For more about Leslie’s speaking, writing and press interviews re: all things metaverse and AI, see this blog post:
https://www.savourpartnership.com/blog//artificial-intelligence-and-metaverse-activations-a-summary
Follow Thompson on Instagram here and on Linked In here.
Follow Leslie on Instagram here and on Linked In here.
Final note: Leslie will be speaking on AI and metaverse activations at Fall 2023 #HPMKT as part of Universal Furniture’s Learning Center Speaker Series, on Tuesday, Oct. 17th at 10 am. If you will be attending High Point Market, please join her and the Thompson family who will also be in attendance.