For people like me, when my family goes to the store my wife does the shopping. I do product analysis. Whether it’s the department store, the grocery store or a hardware store I always feel like I’m in product research mode. It’s a great way to inspire yourself to innovate or reinvent products already on the market or invent a product that you can’t find in a store. Store shelves are always a free and hardy source of brain food.

Let’s say I’m interested in making door hinges and I find hinges in the stores, selling for 49 cents. I’ll look at that and ask myself how the manufacturer engineered and got this product to the market at that price point while still making a profit. Then I’ll buy the hinge and attempt to reverse engineer it. I’ll see what the benefits and flaws of it are. You’ll never know how this information will apply to you in future inventions. You might look at something like this hinge and two years later you’ll be on a completely unrelated project and say to yourself, “perhaps I can apply that to this.”

I think stores are the best schooling. Most people don’t understand injection molding, stamping, manufacturer tooling and so on. In time, as you become familiar with this, you’ll pull a product off the shelf and know how it’s made. It’ll make you a much better designer.

As well, it’s great to see patterns in corporate packaging. What is popular in packaging, whether its graphics or the engineering. Are companies using less packaging to reduce waste? How are they doing it? Why is it important? Again, once you’re able to answer these questions, you’ll be a better designer and inventor. I could spend all day in the store just doing research.