The following article is posted with permission from Cleveland Institute of Art. It orignally appeared in Link, a CIA publication. Photography by Robert Muller.

ALUM ASSEMBLES CIA DESIGN TEAM

Every day, Rene Polin ’94 and his team of Cleveland Institute of Art educated designers bring new meaning to the adage think globally, act locally. They design toys, housewares, medical products, electronics and packaging systems for international clients as diverse as Sunbeam, Hasbro and Electrosonics Medical. But they do most of their work from a cozy Northeast Ohio office.

Polin calls it a nice balance. He even named his company Balance Product Development. “Balance is just how everything in life works. We want the right balance of engineering and design; we want our products to be manufacturable yet beautiful; and we want balance in our lives.”

After graduation, Polin launched his career at Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, the highly successful Cleveland firm founded by 1972 CIA graduates John Nottingham and John Spirk, and later worked for SmartShape Design in Cleveland. In 2004, he opened Balance in the quaint village of Chagrin Falls, 15 miles east of the Institute.

The company has been growing ever since. In fact Polin plans to double his space by expanding into an adjacent office this summer. “From pretty early on, I’ve had so much work I couldn’t do it all. I’ve had to keep adding designers,” he said.

BUILDING A CIA-CENTRIC TEAM

Five of the six designers Polin has hired are CIA graduates. Jesse Carlson ’95 joined Balance a few months after Polin established the company and now serves as director of industrial design. He loves the diversity of projects and industries with which he works. “We’re always learning. I’ve learned about fiber optics, textiles, sheet metal, all kinds of things. Being exposed to so much variety helps you grow as a designer and keeps the work interesting.”

Anthony DeMore ’94 joined Balance in 2006 as director of business development after several years in the fast lane working for multinational corporations in Florida, Connecticut and New York City. “It was time for a change and, fortunately, my situation allowed me to pick up and leave when Rene needed help growing the business,” he said.

David Pehar ’05 and Katherine “Kat” Hoy ’07 both joined Balance shortly after graduation.

Michael Tracz ’04, Polin’s most recent recruit, was hired last fall after a fouryear stint in Boston at Continuum, one of the nation’s top industrial design firms. He loved Boston but said he jumped at the chance to come back to Cleveland and work for two of his mentors, Polin and Carlson.

“I’m very excited to be back. It’s a dream job. There’s a lot of talent in this little office,” said Tracz.

One of Polin’s goals is to try to “keep talent in town and, in some cases, bring talent back to town. Recruiting Mike Tracz away from Continuum was a big win for the region and for us,” he said.

Polin hired Justin Harriman away from Kansas. He works off site at Diebold, Inc. in North Canton, Ohio (not because he’s the only non-CIA graduate, Polin was quick to explain, but because his skills align well with the ongoing work Balance
does for Diebold.)

ABOVE: THE BALANCE DESIGN TEAM, LEFT TO RIGHT, RENE POLIN ’94, JESSE CARLSON ’95, ANTHONY DEMORE ’94, DAVID PEHAR ’05, KATHERINE HOY ’07, JAMES PARK ’10 AND MICHAEL TRACZ ’04.

GIVING BACK TO CIA AND TO CLEVELAND

In addition to attracting and retaining talent to Northeast Ohio, Polin tries to act locally when he contracts with marketing and engineering professionals, keeping the business in Greater Cleveland as much as possible. “We’re dedicated to growing this region,” he said.

He has found even more ways of giving back to his alma mater, including attending occasional critiques and exhibitions of student work in the Industrial Design Department. Said DeMore after a recent visit, “I’m blown away by the level of the work and the presentations the students are doing lately. They’re learning the entire process of industrial design now. (Industrial Design Department Head) Dan Cuffaro is bringing that whole big picture to the students.”

Such visits help Polin and DeMore scout out new talent. Balance has hired four CIA students as interns. Hoy worked as an intern before she was hired part-time. Janna Prilutsky ’07, now a designer at Step2 Company,  nd Kenneth Jasinski ’09, now preparing to graduate, interned at Balance, and James Park ’10, who interned full time at Balance last summer continues with the company once a week this school year.

“Having a farm team of young talent is great because we get to know the character of the people and we can work with some students for a couple of years,” Polin said. “Everybody wins. The interns learn a whole lot by just being here and we learn about what young designers are thinking.”

In an even more tangible gesture of giving back, Balance generously supports the Institute’s annual fund, which provides operating support to the college and scholarship support to current students. “You can’t forget where you came from and you can’t forget who helped you get where you are. Six out of seven of us are from the Institute. How can I say that had nothing to do with
our success?”

CHALLENGES, SKILLS AND NERF WARS

Polin and his team credit their CIA education liberally for helping them develop the problem-solving skills and strong work ethic that propel the company.

“At CIA, we learned a work ethic that was really peer driven,” DeMore recalls. “We pushed each other; it was competitive but not cutthroat.”

That’s the spirit Polin has tried to recreate at Balance. “The true breakthroughs only come when there’s a team effort. You could definitely get in a rut working by yourself.” And in business, he said, there’s no time for ruts. “Probably the most challenging thing that an industrial designer has to deal with is that we have no excuse for a down day or writer’s block. We have to be creative and innovative on tight deadlines, because if we don’t deliver, someone else will.”

So how does the Balance team manage to come up with winning new ideas every day. . . by 5:00? “We go back to our CIA education. What we learned in terms of creative problem solving and abstract thought helps us break through a lot of barriers.”

Polin and DeMore thank their CIA instructors — including Robert Jergens ’60, Richard Fiorelli ’74 and the late Roy Hess ’48 — with teaching them to think in a whole different way.

“We often surprise engineers by solving problems they weren’t able to because they’re locked into straight-line thinking and we throw them curves. When we do that, we have to be able to back it up and show how something is manufacturable and marketable,” Polin said.

At Balance, creative thinking is clearly a team sport. “When you have several creative people in the room, you don’t have to follow the rules of linear thinking. We have to look at every possible way to solve a problem, taking into account the physical attributes of the product, its marketing potential, and how a particular design approach compares with past successes we’ve had, even if we’re comparing a medical product to a toy.”

Says Carlson, “It helps that we have exactly the right mix of skill sets and talent to really make a lot happen, and with much lower overhead than the larger firms have.”

When deadlines are tight and expectations are high, Nerf® gun wars help the Balance team break the tension and keep the creative juices flowing. “Of course with all these designers, every single gun as been modified,” said Tracz. “Some have different projectiles, some have more powerful propulsion, you name it; they’ve all been tweaked.”

Of course.

Editor’s Note: Employers interested in learning
more about CIA’s internship program should
contact Rachel Browner, internship counselor,
at 216.421.8072 or rbrowner@cia.edu