Is kitchen design in a coma?

After spending the majority of his career developing ranges for a kitchen manufacturer, consultant Terry Woods is concerned that the industry seems to be sleepwalking, with little motivation to innovate new designs

by kbbreview04 December, 2024

Words: Terry Woods

Over the last 15 to 20 years, it seems very little has changed when it comes to kitchen frontal design.

The majority of showrooms look very similar with just four basic styles of doors: Slab, Shaker, J Finger Pull, and Handleless, and occasionally an In-frame solution.

 Slab, Melamine Faced Chipboard or Vinyl wrapped MDF doors will always be around and decors will be influenced by the board, paper and foil manufacturers. Shaker has been around for 30 years, albeit in different materials, frame widths woodgrains and colours. And J Finger Pull doors have been around since 2004 and handleless since the late Noughties.

People today promote a culture of individualism in the way they dress and present themselves, with features like tattoos having become the norm as a way of expressing ourselves. So, why aren’t manufacturers and retailers developing innovative, creative designs with a wider choice of options?

Design downturn

There seems to be a lack of designers who can deliver innovation and creativity and the industry is currently heavily influenced by customer insight managers, marketing managers and buyers that analyse sales and trends in consumer behaviour, but have little design experience.

Insights and data are good on one level but they don’t necessarily tell you what consumers would really like. From my experience, consumers don’t know what they want or like until they see it!

Very few (especially British) manufacturers now make everything in-house and there has been a move to outsourcing components – especially doors. Unfortunately, this is the very thing that can help them to stand out, which manufacturers no longer have full control over. 

Twenty-five years ago, we had a broad product offer, which consisted of MFC doors, painted MDF, foil-wrapped MDF, and timber doors in various styles, all of which took influence from the Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, Shaker and Victorian movements.

It seems nobody  today wants to take risks and launch something fresh, new, and more importantly, different.

Trend forecasting

Having trained at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design and gained a degree in product design, I always used to identify new trends before our competition and this helped differentiate our product offer and increase our sales.

Every year I would design and develop anything from 20 to 30 new doors. Then, after comprehensive research to gain feedback on the prototypes, we would launch the most popular.

I looked at not just kitchen and interior design but architecture, car design and general product design for inspiration. 

In the automotive industry for example, there is a clear differentiation between manufacturers’ styling, and brands are instantly recognisable. This certainly isn’t the case when it comes to the  kitchen industry.

So, I would urge manufacturers and large retailers to be more adventurous, invest in product design, put innovation and creativity at the forefront of your business strategy to come up with new frontal designs in order to help differentiate yourself and add value to your product offer. 

I’m not suggesting a return to solid timber or more ornate styles, but just some new and exciting alternatives to those that are currently on offer. Otherwise, I fear we will enter into a race to the bottom on who can offer the cheapest kitchen – although one could argue this is already unfortunately the case!