blankblank turns 20
Northern California-based design company blankblank celebrates twenty years of enduring design and small-batch manufacturing despite myriad challenges.
"The Heliocentric lighting collection that we started our company with remains our best seller," says Rob Zinn who conceived of the unique reflected-color designs and co-founded the company in Sacramento in 2004. "But the competitive landscape is quite different. We celebrate this twentieth anniversary at a time when there is less regional high-quality manufacturing capability than ever."
blankblank lighting and furniture designs are all made to be reconfigured, refurbished or recolored during their lifespan for maximum sustainability and adaptability. blankblank is also known for its collection of decor objects including a series of conceptual curated bookshelves, Juxtaposed, and foundry-cast sculptural bronze pieces.
95% of blankblank's products are manufactured within 75 miles of its headquarters in the California Delta but the company's longtime lighting manufacturing partner, a one hundred-year-old lighting firm based in Rancho Cordova, closed in 2020, and its other small-batch fabricators struggle to find workers and keep costs down. "We realized that the cost of fabricating our bronze foundry products increased by 40% in the past five years. We hated to do it but we had to increase our list price accordingly," says Anna Pavao Zinn.
Yet blankblank remains committed to its original higher compensation structure for its product designers. "Most companies pay out a maximum design royalty of 5% each time a product is sold. We still pay at least twice that." blankblank founder and Creative Director Rob Zinn was recently, himself, on the receiving end of the lower royalty structure due to a licensing deal with Marset lighting of Spain with one of his Heliocentric wall sconces, Concentric, winner of Interior Design Magazine's Best of Year Lighting: Sconce for 2016 and recipient of the Editors’ Award for Best Lighting at ICFF 2016. As part of it's twentieth anniversary celebration, blankblank is relaunching Concentric as part of its own collection, once again being manufactured in Northern California and sold alongside its companion sconces, Expansion and Viscosity.
"There are also very few brick-and-mortar design retailers left where customers can see unique products in-person and it's difficult for the subtle beauty of our designs and the quality of the materials to come across in photographs," says Anna. "We used to have quite a few retail stores in California where prospective shoppers could see and purchase our work, including some high-end design galleries, nearly all of which have closed their doors. Nearly all of our sales come to us directly from end users and interior designers, nowadays." Retailers, including online retailers, now typically require deeper profit margins and minimum numbers of product SKUs which can be difficult for specialized or small companies to meet.
blankblank launched the company in May of 2004 at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City where it was featured by the New York Times as a highlight of the Fair. "The attention that blankblank's early work and business model received was priceless", says Anna Pavao Zinn, the company's co-owner and President. "We were featured by every major design publication and print news outlet. That's not possible now, in a world where nearly everything is pay-to-play and small companies don't have the deep pockets of the larger companies."
Despite these challenges, the work remains extremely satisfying. "Just this month we received two unsolicited emails from early clients sharing images and telling us how much they still love living with products from twenty years ago," says Anna."Every year a significant percentage of our business comes from former clients shopping with us once again. It's a privilege and a compliment, to continue to inspire beauty and trust and to be part of our clients' exceptional environments. Says Rob, "We hope to continue to be able to offer great value and enduring quality and to keep supporting our local fabrication partners for many years to come."