Why AchooBox Was Always About More Than Just Holding Tissue

Recently, I watched an old Steve Jobs interview where he talked about how he learned to approach product design. He started with the customer experience first, and then the technology. From his answer, you could tell he learned this the hard way.

That idea stayed with me because, in many ways, that’s how AchooBox was created.

From the beginning, I wasn’t thinking about injection molding or manufacturing processes. I'll admit that I didn't even know what an injection mold was, let alone know that I'd need one. I was thinking about how people actually live with an everyday product— in this case, tissue. 

I knew that AchooBox needed to be easy.

Easy to load.
Easy to dispense.
Easy to leave out.

That may sound simple, but it shaped nearly every design decision.

I designed AchooBox to fit mega rolls because that’s what many people already stock in their homes. I wanted it to work with any type of tissue— whether it was single-ply, thicker premium brands, or bamboo. I wanted it to be quick and easy to load.

The dispensing needed to feel smooth and controlled, which required many iterations of the hole in the top of the box. It had to be small enough that the tissue wouldn't fall back inside the box, but big enough that it wouldn't break coming out. This came down to millimeter adjustments. 

The box itself needed to be durable, not something disposable or temporary. I wanted to build a lasting home object.

Even the original box colors were chosen with customer experience in mind. Before AchooCovers existed, I knew people would want AchooBox to blend naturally into their spaces. The soft diamond finish wasn't just a technical detail — it was part of making the product feel elevated and at home in different environments.

At the time, I thought I was designing primarily for function.

But somewhere along the way, I realized something important:

Customer experience isn’t only functional.
It’s emotional and visual, too.

People don’t just want products that work well. They want products that feel good to live with. 

That realization sparked the idea for slipcovers.

I've always been a huge fan of slipcover furniture. Not only do I love the look, but raising two boys meant I could wash them and swap the covers out by season— brown denim in fall/winter, white in spring/summer. (I thought white would be a disaster until the sales rep said I could bleach them—she was right.)

AchooCovers started with a simple question:
What if the product didn’t just match a room — what if it elevated it?

That shift opened up an entirely new layer of design thinking.

Suddenly, the experience wasn’t only about dispensing tissue. It became about texture, color, softness, pattern, and mood. It became about helping something practical feel intentional within a home.

And that led me into a world I honestly hadn’t expected: fabric and pattern design.

Most stretch fabrics are designed for clothing, not home decor. I quickly learned that patterns behave very differently on a structured object than they do on a shirt or dress. Scale matters. Direction matters. Seams matter. Corners matter. A pattern that looks beautiful on a flat screen can behave completely differently once it wraps around a cube. 

I became fascinated by how patterns could either soften a product or fight against it. 

That’s what eventually led me toward multi-directional designs like the Leaf collection, coastal-inspired patterns, florals, and now, toile-inspired designs coming soon. I wanted patterns that felt at home in real living spaces while also working with the structure of the product itself.

In many ways, AchooBox evolved from solving a functional problem into solving a visual one, too.

How do you create an everyday object people actually want to leave out?

How do you turn something normally disposable into something intentional?

How do you make a practical object feel like it belongs on a coffee table, nursery dresser, console table, or nightstand?

Those questions became just as important as the mechanics of the box itself.

Looking back, I realize AchooBox was never really just about holding tissue.

It was about creating a better everyday experience around something people already use constantly.

Because good design isn’t only about function.

It’s about how something makes you feel living with it every day.