About the Ideas Foundry
The Ideas Foundry was started by a couple of blokes keen on design and sure they could make a difference with some innovative ideas. Our products are primarily focussed at the rural industry and are sustainability focussed.
This might be in terms of environmental sustainability or it may be to aid the ongoing profitability of all involved in our product's value chain – from our suppliers right through to the end customer.
It's extremely important to us to add value for our suppliers through to our customers. Hence our stance on giving a percentage of our sales back to the community.
If you have a product and you want to take it to market and you're not sure how, we'd love to hear from you so give us a call.
The Early Days
Images of the boys holding the initial cardboard prototypes, alongside the second plastic prototypes.
The Team
Tony Smith has designed and/ or commercialised everything from Canterbury Apparel, Skellerup 4*4 and Quatro gumboots, Schoen footwear, and most recently, Ironbark Knitwear.
His list of achievements include:
- Designer & marketer of the world leading Canterbury brand for LWR, and set up the original Canterbury shops (of which he owned) to first take the brand to market.
- Business owner & designer of NZ renowned internationally marketed clothing brand – Global Culture
- Designer of Skellerup's 4*4 Gumboot, the Quatro and Schoen work boots
- Designer & owner of Ironbark Knitwear, distributed through CRT and Farmlands
- Designer of Swanndri’s latest product range – distributed through PGGW
Jonathan Prince has designed and/ or commercialised product for some of NZ’s leading companies. He comes from an engineering background across a broad range of industries. He spent several years designing mobile radios for Tait Electronics and moved on to Formway where he became the project leader on the internationally acclaimed LIFE chair. He has held a number of Snr management and business development roles specialising in developing and commercialising NZ designed product in the international market. Jonathan is an Associate member for NZMEA (Manufacturers and Exporters) and regularly speaks on design and commercialisation.
Companies he has developed product for include:
- Tait Electronics
- Formway Design Studio
- Steelfort
- Humanware
- Mountain Buggy
