Slice Inc. was founded by T.J. Scimone in 2008
and is headquartered in
Miami, Florida
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...
. The company mostly manufactures small hand-held cutting tools, including box-cutters, knives, and scissors.
History
Slice began as a product-design firm specializing in
housewares
Household goods are goods and products used within households. They are the tangible and movable personal property placed in the rooms of a house, such as a bed or refrigerator.
Economic role
Businesses that produce household goods are categor ...
and "developing ultramodern interpretations of
kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation in a dwelling or in a commercial establishment. A modern middle-class residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water ...
staples like
vegetable peelers and
cheese graters." The company was successful in a "pocket-size
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelai ...
blade" for opening packages and other
shrink-wrapped items," according to ''
Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
'' magazine, so "Scimone pivoted, vowing to make common tools like box cutters . . . both sleeker and safer." The magazine added: "It's that emphasis on
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...
that has brought Slice to the attention of merchants outside the traditional business-to-business segment. The company's products are now available at retailers that include
Michaels Stores
Michaels Stores, Inc., more commonly known as Michaels, is a privately held chain of 1,252 American and Canadian arts and crafts stores, as of January 2021. It is one of North America's largest providers of arts, crafts, framing, floral and wall ...
and
The Container Store
The Container Store Group, Inc. is an American specialty retail chain company that operates The Container Store, which offers storage and organization products, and custom closets.
The company has made '' Fortunes list of "100 Best Companie ...
, along with office-supply vendors."
[Jason Ankeny, "The Company Giving Common Objects a Sleek New Design," ''Entrepreneur,'' June 2013]
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Products
Some of the products manufactured by Slice Inc. are:
Ceramic-Blade Box Cutter, made in two versions – one a manual, three-position and the other an auto-retract. The former was a winner of the Red Dot Design Award
The Red Dot Design Award is a German international design prize awarded by Red Dot GmbH & Co. KG. There are prize categories for product design, brands and communication design, and design concept. Since 1955, designers and producers can app ...
for tools
A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates ba ...
in 2011, with its double-sided ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelai ...
blade featuring a rounded tip.[EdisonAwards.com]
/ref>
Precision Cutter. Winner of the Good Design Award of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design in 2008, the cutter was designed by Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid (born 1960) is an Egyptian-born and Canadian raised industrial designer. His designs include luxury goods, furniture, lighting, surface design, brand identity and packaging. ''Time'' magazine has described him as the "most famous ind ...
, a "designer partner" within Slice. It has "a zirconium-oxide-based micro-ceramic blade that lasts longer than traditional steel blades and never rusts."[
]
References
External links
*About Slice, Inc., on the company websit
*Core77, International Home and Housewares Show, 2011, statement by T.J. Scimon
*Sebil Kaede, "Advanced Safety of Cutter: Cut In With Designer's Eye," ''Nikkei Marketing Journal,'' January 9, 2012 (Japanese)
{{knives
2008 establishments in California
Manufacturing companies based in Miami
Knife manufacturing companies
Manufacturing companies established in 2008