Thank you to everyone who came to our launch party this past Saturday! We had a wonderful turnout and a great time unveiling our inaugural product, the Grove iPhone case. We appreciate the enthusiasm that you all have for what we do and how we do it. Those feelings keep us going on our Grove journey.

People really enjoyed being able to touch, feel, and get up close to our cases. Only in person can you FEEL the natural qualities of our product. There is no way to substitute for a hand rubbed finish. No plastic!

This party was a good reminder that we as individuals are a product of our relationships and the inspiration and support they provide. Yay for people!

We recently had the pleasure of working with fashion photographer Quavondo on a photo series for Grove. Q focuses on fashion and celebrity photography. Shooting at the fabulous Bamboo Garden in North Plains, we had Quavondo take over with his artistic vision.

Ken recently represented Grove at AIGA Portland’s SHIFT: A Green Salon event. Ten presenters from various industries spoke about their ideas on sustainable design. The title of our presentation was “A journey in sustainable product and packaging design”.

Here is the transcript:

Ken Tomita: Hello. My name is Ken Tomita. I’m a furniture designer, and I’ve been doing this for about 5 years. Recently I started a new company called Grove with my business partner Joe Mansfield, but I’d like to talk about the new product.

First of all, how many of you have iPhones? Could you do a favor for me and take them out of your pockets and show them to me? If you look around my business partner and I noticed that there’s a void of natural materials. They’re often made of silicone, rubber, plastic, etc. So we saw that niche as an opportunity to make a new company specializing in sustainable electronic cases.

[read the entire transcript]