OXO designed for everyone.

OXO is a lesson in designing for everyone. It was founded in 1990 by Sam Farber, a retired housewares veteran (he’d earlier founded Copco). The origin story is genuine and moving: Farber’s wife Betsey had mild arthritis in her hands and struggled to grip an ordinary vegetable peeler, so he set out to design comfortable, easy-hold tools — launching the first line of 15 Good Grips tools (the swivel peeler as flagship) at a 1990 San Francisco trade show. (Two honest notes: no official brand hex is published, and the wordmark typeface is undocumented.)

That peeler became a landmark of universal design — the philosophy of designing products usable by the widest possible range of people, regardless of ability. Developed with the New York design firm Smart Design, the Good Grips handle is a soft, oval, black grip with flexible fin-like ribs, moulded from a grippy Santoprene-type thermoplastic (not natural rubber). An honest nuance: the peeler began as an ergonomic/comfort solution and became the poster child for universal design — OXO popularised and exemplified the idea rather than inventing it (the term itself comes from architect Ronald Mace). Good Grips is now a canonical case study, held in the Museum of Modern Art collection.

The name is a neat piece of design thinking too: “OXO” is an ambigram — it reads the same horizontally, vertically, upside down and mirrored, so the logo works in any orientation. The range grew into a huge line of clever, ergonomic tools: the salad spinner, the angled measuring cup (readable from above), the one-touch POP containers. On ownership: Farber sold OXO to General Housewares in 1992, and since 2004 OXO has been owned by Helen of Troy (the same company behind Hydro Flask). The identity is clean and functional — black, white and an OXO green accent. Designed for everyone.

OXO lives in black, white and green. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

OXO’s identity is clean, functional and unfussy — anchored by the black of its signature Santoprene handles and clean white packaging, with an OXO green accent. The palette reads as practical, approachable and democratic, matching a brand built on clever, comfortable, everyday tools for everyone: it’s honest and utilitarian rather than luxurious or loud, letting the ergonomic products and their function take centre stage. The honest caveat: OXO publishes no official brand hex, so the green here is an approximation of its accent, and the palette is an unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a clean, functional palette suits a democratic-design brand. OXO’s black-white-and-green world reads as practical and inclusive — matching tools designed for everyone. For designers, it’s a reminder that restrained, honest colour can express accessibility and function. The takeaways: use clean, practical tones for a universal-design brand (black, white, a clear accent); let the products and their ergonomics lead; and treat specific hexes as approximate when no official spec is published.

The wordmark is a clean geometric sans — clear and symmetric.

OXO’s identity carries a clean, geometric, clear spirit — a wordmark whose symmetric, even letterforms echo the ambigram name (readable any way up) and read as functional, honest and approachable. The clear type matches a brand built on universal, easy-to-use design, and the simplicity signals accessibility over decoration. Set against a black-white-and-green palette, the type feels practical and democratic — exactly the design-for-everyone personality OXO cultivates. It’s clean and geometric rather than ornate, mirroring the functional tools. Because the exact wordmark face isn’t publicly documented, the honest description is “a clean geometric sans spirit,” not a named font. The type behaves like the brand: clear, functional and symmetric.

OXO made inclusion a business.

OXO is a lesson in turning inclusive design into a mainstream business. The insight behind Good Grips was that a tool designed to be comfortable for someone with arthritis is better for everyone — easier, nicer, more pleasant to use for the whole population, not just those who struggle. That’s the heart of universal design, and OXO proved it isn’t a niche or a compromise but a commercial superpower: comfortable, thoughtful, genuinely better tools that people happily pay a little more for and stay loyal to. By making empathy the starting point of product development — designing for the edge case and delighting the mainstream — OXO built an enormous, beloved range and a durable brand out of what looks like a simple vegetable peeler. The lesson is that designing for the people usually left out often produces the best products for everyone, and that empathy can be a genuine, scalable business strategy. Design for everyone, and everyone benefits.

For designers and brand-builders, OXO offers a clear takeaway: inclusive, universal design can be a mainstream commercial advantage, not a niche. The lessons: start from empathy and the edge case (the arthritis-friendly peeler that’s better for all); make the philosophy consistent across a whole range (clever, comfortable tools); and let a clean, honest identity carry it. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — OXO was founded in 1990 by Sam Farber (inspired by his wife Betsey’s arthritis), designed Good Grips with Smart Design, chose an ambigram name, and has been owned by Helen of Troy since 2004 (having gone via General Housewares in 1992, not directly from Farber). OXO made inclusion a business — proof that designing for everyone can be a winning strategy.

Keep OXO’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.