Adin Mumma was born in the United States in 1981 and spent the early part of his life growing up in Taiwan. As the son of a shoemaker, he spent much time in footwear factories and at the age of 17 designed and assembled his first shoe. In 2005 Adin received a Bachelors of Science in Industrial Design from the University of Arts in Philadelphia where he was awarded the Mary Louise Beitzel and Florence Whistler Fish Award for student excellence. He has also studied at the Istituto Europeo Di Design program in Milan. In 2004, his collaboration on a chair design won the Future Furniture Competition from Interior Design magazine in New York.

Since graduation, Adin joined Umbra, first in Canada and now in China as an industrial designer and overseas coordinator. He continues to contribute designs and has received awards from both ID magazine and HOW's magazine. Adin's work has been expressed as being whimsical and minimalistic while still upholding a utilitarian approach. Subtle details are often magnified and celebrated that otherwise would be unnoticed.

1. What are some of the Umbra products you designed? What is your specialty/expertise? What are you currently working on?

Past products include. SPENCE tape dispenser, CHRYSALIS mirror, WOBBLE chess set, CRINKLE bath accessories, DESIRE jewelry box, GRASSY PTH, PULP bulletin board.

I've bee working in UMBRA since 2005 as a designer and overseas coordinator. I consider myself a generalist when it comes to design; I feel in every category there is always something interesting to explore and expand on. Most of my designs focus on articulating small details and implementing them into new functions or products. For SPENCE the idea of achieving function from a single extruded part with no moving components, CRINKLE soap dish uses crinkled shape to provide the support needed to lift the soap off the water.

2. What are some of the blogs/books/magazines that you read for inspiration?

• Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart
• Tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell
• Wallpaper
• www.ideo.com
• www.treehugger.com

3. Out of all Umbra designs, what are some of your favourite products? What do you like about the product?

• PULP bulletin board- uses stacked reprocessed paper to create the pin surface. While visiting packaging factories in China, I noticed the excess cutoffs on everything the factory printed; the recycle aspect was what drove the design in this case. Not only was this a successful reuse of a waste material, but also reinvented the way bulletin board's function.

• I really enjoy the simplicity of the MISTIC Clock design- The idea of using ornate clock hands which are generally well displayed and covering it with a frosted glass is a bold idea. It works well with both modern and traditional home décor.

• BIJOU - is a very successful jewelry tree design. The product is simple and utilitarian. It looks elegant with necklaces and rings but I use mine for keys and loose change. There are very few products out there that transition well between genders.

Additional stuff you?d like to include:

WOBBLE chess set inspiration: The design was rather a simple mergence of 2 toys; chess and weebles. I was always inspired by the weebles simplistic functions which brought so much enjoyment. The time just seemed right for the child's toy to finally grow up. While developing the WOBBLE Chess set, what surprised me as I searched "wobble" on the web was the comments left by chess manufactures. Their proud note of "absolutely NO wobble" ?this made all the difference for me to design.