Leverage, led by Corwyn Strout, is part of the R&D/Leverage tooling and design group in Lee's Summit, Mo. Leverage is a full-service industrial design firm, offering an integrated industrial design process, methodology and philosophy.
The Leverage division is a new initiative at R&D Integrated Solutions in Plastics that came from the strategic planning to address issues in the traditional way a structural packaging is designed and developed. R&D makes tooling for injection molding and blow molding applications.
Located in separate facility on the R&D campus in suburban Kansas City, Mo., Leverage (www.rdleverage.com) works directly with brand owners to develop structural packaging and consumer products. Strout describes it as “an upfront creative engine to develop products and packaging.”
Strout studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, a top private art school, where a collaborative approach was taught. After cutting his teeth at the Cleveland-based industrial design firm Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, Strout moved on to his own consultancy, working in outdoor products, toys and housewares. But it was at Alcoa, where he implemented industrial design process and methodologies to the injection molded products line that created the inspiration for his latest venture and design approach.
A native of upstate New York, Strout also is an avid supporter of community programs that invest in the next generation and he spent three years full-time pioneering a youth outreach to teens. His passion is to take an innovative industrial design process and apply it in industries that aren't typically design centric.