OUR CONCEPT DESIGN PROCESS
Concept Design is a critical and in-depth part of the product design process. This post outlines the steps that our design team takes to fully understand, research, create and collaborate, in order to kickoff development of the ideal product for our clients. INITIAL RESEARCH The initial portion of the design process is all about learning […]
REFRIGERATION EXPLAINED
If you’re interested in developing a product with cooling or refrigeration features, it may be helpful to understand how refrigeration works. Refrigeration is used by refrigerators and air conditioning systems alike and is the most effective way to control hot temperatures in any engineering application.
CAD FILE TYPES TO KNOW WHEN WORKING WITH PRODUCT DESIGNERS
It’s important for product owners to understand the different file types associated with 3D CAD Modeling while collaborating with a CAD designer. Every commercial CAD program has its own native file types. These contain the most information but can be difficult to share. STEP and IGES files are used to share data between different CAD […]
COLOR, MATERIAL, AND FINISH: HOW TO SELECT IN PRODUCT DESIGN
Choosing Color, Material, and Finish (CMF) carefully can elevate a product’s user appeal. Color evokes emotion, but it’s perception depends highly on material and finish. Materials have distinct functional properties, and colors can be innate or applied through finishing. Finishing processes can alter the appearance of color and material, but must be chosen carefully based […]
CUSTOM PARTS & STOCK PARTS: HOW TO USE BOTH IN PRODUCT DESIGN
Most products require some combination of custom and stock components. Custom components can be used in instances where a part must perform a unique function, perform a generic function to a specific specification, or combine multiple functions in a unique way to satisfy the user’s needs. Stock parts are preferred in instances where the component […]
INJECTION MOLD TOOLING: WHAT IS IT? AND WHEN IS IT WORTH THE INVESTMENT?
Injection mold tooling is the process of designing and manufacturing equipment to reliably and inexpensively produce high quality plastic parts. Given the complexity of modern mold tooling, this process requires a high upfront cost before any quantity of product can be manufactured. However, the per-part cost following the tooling process can be minimal compared to […]
GD&T: WHAT IS IT, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT IN PRODUCT DESIGN?
If you’ve spent some time around mechanical engineering or manufacturing, then you might have heard of GD&T. But what is it? And why is it relevant to your product design project? Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (or GD&T) is a system for defining and communicating the tolerances of size, shape, orientation, and location for features on […]
AN INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER’S 5-STEP PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
The quality of our lives are in large part defined by the quality of our environment. The environment of our modern society is defined in large part by the objects we choose to surround ourselves with and use everyday. The things that we end up really loving, and that make the biggest difference in our […]
3 REASONS YOUR DESIGNERS AND MANUFACTURERS SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT
Your product’s designers and manufacturers should be independent. Surprised to hear it? Since these two disciplines are so closely related, many assume that these should naturally be done together. In fact, I often hear about product owners who approach manufacturers directly with their conceptual sketches- and just as often get approached by product owners who […]
WHY TESLA WILL (OR WON’T) MAKE CAMERA-ONLY CARS POSSIBLE (PART 2)
Last week we discussed the recent announcement from Tesla: that they would be changing their autonomous vehicle hardware stack for all new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, removing radar sensors. For a whole host of reasons, this makes fully autonomous driving a much more difficult problem to solve. In fact, according to pretty much every […]