Many sides of the ‘manifold clock’

When Tel Aviv industrial designers Ben Klinger and Shay Tarmon created the Manifold clock — a wall-mounted clock that manipulates a furled paper in order to tell time — they didn’t necessarily intend it to become the flagship product for their fledgling firm. They did, however, have hopes that it would succeed.

When the clock actually began to sell, “it really came as a surprise,” said Klinger. “We posted it on [technology blog] Gizmodo and within an hour, something like 100,000 people had seen it and we had 800 orders in one day.”

The clock uses a colorfully striped strip of Tyvek, a flexible, Dupont-created plastic, to create three-dimensional movement over the course of an hour. The short hand keeps track of the hours while the long hand follows the minutes, allowing it to be read like a regular clock. The hands are connected by the Tyvek, which keeps furling and fanning out over the course of a day.

People are drawn to the simplicity of the clock, added Klinger, describing it as a timepiece that is also a wall sculpture.

Klinger and Tarmon enjoy finding the unusual in the ordinary. Their company is called Studio Ve, a Hebrew play on their names, Shay ve Ben, or Shay and Ben, and they met while studying design at the Technology School in Holon, just outside Tel Aviv.

Their designs are sleek, modern, with more than a hint of humor. There’s the Domina Shelf, whose books fall like dominoes given the lack of bookends, the Two Leg (coffee) Table that is able to balance on two legs instead of four, and the Horseless Rocking chair made from a bale of hay. All mostly useful, clever and designed to engender a chuckle.

Tarmon, 34, is also a mathematician, with skills that are always helpful in figuring out the logistics of a manifold clock or two-legged table. Klinger, 28, designs websites, formerly for doctors.

What’s hard, said Klinger, is actually making money from this creative endeavor. As a team, they knew it would take time to succeed as an industrial design firm, and it was clear they would have to sell by way of the Internet, in addition to sales in Israel’s relatively small local market.

Following the initial success of the Manifold clock, they’ve embarked on a fundraising project with Kickstarter, a funding website for creative types. They aim to raise $15,000 by February 23, and have raised slightly more than $6,000 thus far.

“We’d heard about Kickstarter and since they’ve raised $100 million through the site, we thought it would be the best option for us,” said Klinger. “Five years ago, I’m not sure what we would have done.”

If the fundraising round succeeds, they hope to produce several hundred Manifold clocks, including a $60 version and a larger, $100 clock.

“That’s how it works with us, we create, we design, we manufacture and we market,” he said.

Yet it’s the meshing of processes that draws the two work partners, the creative side with the business practicality.

“Industrial design is about products that you take home, that people want to have in their lives,” said Klinger. “Now we just have to be able to finance the process of making our product for people.”