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"This was a pig, a meat pig, lived on a farm here." Christien Meindertsma sounds almost affectionate about "her" pig, now immortalized as "Pig 05049."  

"I wasn't allowed to see this pig because at the time there was some disease issue. But I was sent a picture of the pig. And an ear tag, and all. So I would know this was a real pig." 

That "real pig" went a long way when Meindertsma traced its commercial uses to products including ammunition, medicine, photo paper, heart valves, brakes, chewing gum, porcelain, cosmetics, cigarettes, conditioner and biodiesel.

Collagen, derived from the pig's skin, is used for beer and aspirin. The designer points out that the same pig who gives you a headache after drinking that beer, delivers those aspirin to you the next day. "Even though the combination of bullets and beauty injections is food for thought, collagen is processed in the manufacture of both.”

Potgieter and his group had the last laugh when they invited medical teams back to have a look at what they'd created. "It turned out to be their own enthusiasm that made us know how important this was. A head of radiation at one hospital spent a whole day showing us the requirements of what was needed in their work. 

"And a lot of the value you put into an object has to do with knowing where it comes from. Without knowing that, you may not be interested in protecting those origins."

"If you don't know who made the sweater, you may not care who made it."

Meindertsma says she never wanted to be a product designer. "So when I finished school, I was a bit confused about what I should be doing.  But after a few years, I found out that I could basically do or make whatever I want to make -- and I find that this is within the boundaries of a product but it's also creative.

"So I never did see clearly that this was what I wanted t be doing. But now that I'm doing it, I'm very happy about it."

Meindertsma is working next on what she describes as a series of coloring books for young people, the intent of the series to be to illuminate the workings of different types of farms.

"Each book is about one farm. All the machines, the people, the animals." In September, her second book of this new series will come out.  "That one is on a tomato farm. After that, probably the potato farm."

Meindertsma self-publishes her books, and they're sold on Amazon.com.

The first of her new coloring book series releases in the second half of June 2009.

And what is that one about?

"Pig farms."  Meindertsma pauses a beat and then laughs. "Because I know a little about those places."

Designed by:
Christien Meindertsma, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Additional credits: Julie Joliat

www.christienmeindertsma.com

Written by Porter Anderson