How do you transform ordinary stuff into meaningful things, even beautiful things? How you make things that don't yet exist, something original rather than a copy? That's the topic of this conversation with New York-based industrial designer, Neil Cohen. |"Some of what I do in my work is making something that starts out one way," he says, "And then when you do something to it, it forms into something else or reveals something else."

Neil is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and after college, he got on a motorcycle going around the country to see what products companies were making. After that tour, he working in Steuben glass factory, exploring ideas in glass-making. He has designed toys, which allowed him to play with shrink wrap and make gargoyles out of Alka Seltzer tablets. He talks about how sometimes it's not the banana, but the banana peel that becomes the thing you make. It's not always what you first set out to do; it's what you discover while doing it.