APX PRODUCT DESIGN

I began my collaboration with Quilt when they were still in stealth mode, initially focusing on product architecture for the indoor air handler. My work involved exploring various component layouts and heat exchanger shapes, aiming to optimize the form factor to shrink the size for seamless home integration.  As Quilt expanded their team, I was brought back to assist with the Outdoor Unit (ODU) DFM. A key aspect of this project was developing the complex metal front panel assembly that partially conceals the fan. This required close collaboration with multiple overseas manufacturing partners to bring it to fruition.  The resulting design gives Quilt's ODU a distinctive appearance, setting it apart in a market where outdoor units all look alike. This unique aesthetic enhances curb appeal for Quilt owners, offering a competitive edge in the industry.

Mill wanted to build on the success of their first home composter by delivering a second generation that retained all the grinding and dehydration performance, but with a brand new internal mechanical architecture that could be manufactured at a fraction of the cost. I worked on the alpha prototype of the Gen 2 home composter and was responsible for the design of the removable stainless steel bin, early twin vertical grind system, gear train and heating plate. I explored various geometries of the grinding paddles and coupling methods between the grinders and the drivetrain that could endure the tremendously high forces that could effectively shear any type of food including bones. My work included tolerance analysis, design for manufacturability, and the early assembly fixtures for the first proto build.

Zipline has an aggressive plan to transform delivery using UAVs and they brought me in to help with their Platform 2.  I helped develop long folded flexible printed circuits (FPCs) to enable complex signal routing between aircraft subsystems, optimizing space utilization while maintaining signal integrity around challenging airframe geometry.  I also worked on the power cabling for the articulated mixed motor assembly at the rear of the aircraft which rotates the rear motor downward when the aircraft transitions from forward to hover flight - a crucial capability for Zipline's revolutionary delivery system.  Lastly, I worked on the design of the DAA (Detect and Avoid) system sensors which are placed throughout the aircraft.  This was incredibly challenging as the sensors had to fit within a highly constrained aerodynamic envelope while being environmentally sealed and remaining lightweight.

When Peak Design's loyal customers requested a carry on roller, the company recognized the challenge of differentiating in a saturated market. The project's core objective was ambitious: develop a luggage design with an exceptionally optimized internal volume that could maximize storage without compromising portability. I was asked to do some early exploration on the product architecture evaluating various layouts and configurations to best achieve this ambitious goal. 

The critical insight came from breaking down the problem to first principles- to first minimize the size of the latching mechanism in order to reduce the resulting size of the carbon fiber trolley tubes.  Working closely with the Peak team, I did quantitative analysis of the various potential architectures and built an early proof of concept design of a slim retracing luggage handle. By strategically optimizing the handle's geometry, we were able to create additional internal space without sacrificing the luggage's structural integrity or travel-friendly dimensions. It took two more years of additional work by Peak Design to bring the product to market, but I was proud to have contributed to the early foundational work.   

Foothold Labs makes a functionalized electrochemical platform for a variety of applications. They had an early design of a PCBA but needed a new enclosure that would allow it to be used by a branch of the armed forces. A product designed for use in a lab just wasn’t going to cut it in the chaos of an active military airfield. Working within the constraints of the existing board, I was able to design a rugged aluminum enclosure with affordances for soldiers to insert the electrode to test samples while working with gloved hands.

I had the pleasure of working with Andy Logon at AWOL Design on these Zebra pens - the G-450 and G-750. We incorporated manufacturing feedback from the factory in Japan to refine the design and create an ultra premium feeling pen at a very accessible price point effectively elevating the long respected Steel brand. As a huge pen nerd, I had a blast on this short project and it gave me the chance to understand considerations for manufacturing at a massive scale.

Clockwork (at the time Marionet) had developed a nail painting robot that used computer vision and AI to map the nail then apply nail polish. Their prototype was functional but lacked the aesthetic refinement to put confidently in front of users. I helped with a redesign of the enclosure as well as a few rounds of ergonomic prototypes of the hand fixture to help them put their best … hand … forward for alpha testing and then later for their first retail location.

NY Times article

Good Morning America segment

The Today Show segment

I was brought in to Postmates X as they were building their team and helped establish the mechanical architecture for what became the Serve robot.  I wrote the creative brief, and worked with the fantastic team at New Deal Design through the Industrial Design phase of the program to help realize the design vision for a robot that inspires empathy in the community where it operates. During development I did detailed mechanical design of many of the subsystems including the overall internal system layout and the main structure.

MEDIA

Wired Article

Serve on Ellen (VIDEO)

Time Magazine - Best Inventions of the Year, 2019

This was a project where time to market was critical. Blue Clover had customers lined up to take delivery of their Production Line Tool which help companies gain visibility into their overseas production in addition to loading firmware and running tests. They needed the design of an enclosure for the system quickly. Working closely with a manufacturer, we got this product into production in five days from the start of the project.

This was a quick project that I did in collaboration with AWOL Design. The T Series near field studio monitors were a new more affordable version of Adam Audio's high end studio monitors. Time to market was key. I helped them with CAD of the speaker face plate optimized for high volume injection molding. The speakers have since won numerous awards.

As Product Design Lead for the EVO3x Precision 3D Mapping Drone, I led hardware design and user experience.  EVO3x captures images and using proprietary technology, tags them so they can be processed into a 3D model by Skycatch's data processing engine.  Once processed, every point in the model is within 5cm globally georefrenced - an industry first for a quadcopter.  We optimized usability to create a flying robot that reduced the two-week training time from the previous product to only one day.  Our design of the Out of Box Experience focused on ease of use, empowering construction professionals to quickly start collecting highly accurate data.

The Skycatch EVO3x Data Retrieval Unit is an autonomous aerial image capture system.  The UAV automatically takes off, captures photos, lands and offloads photos to an onboard computer.  While landed, the UAV battery is charged via a contacts in the base station.   I led the Industrial Design of the drone and the the base station inspired by rugged industrial equipment we created an aesthetic that balanced the extensive technical requirements for autonomous flight with a need to exude ruggedness and reliability.

This was my first project at frog acting as a Creative Director.  frog had designed a series of premium outdoor furniture for Landscape Forms back in 2005 and it remained so successful that they wanted to extend the line into street lighting and a bike rack maintaining the essence while refreshing the look.  What the team and I developed was a bike rack, signal light and lighted bollard  products that are elegant and modern while paying homage to the organic forms that made the 35 Collection such a success.

The "Kezar" System is an automatic ticket scanner that speeds entry into the new San Francisco 49ers Levi's Stadium.  Synapse Product Development was developing the technology and contacted us to help with the design and user experience.  We learned quickly that fans waiting in line after tailgaiting don't read instructions so the design had to instantly communicate how to interact with it. By starting with the primitive form of a cylinder, and adding a cutaway with a bright pop of color, the user's eye is naturally drawn to the area of interaction.  We conducted extensive user testing in the field and found that a remarkable number of fans knew exactly what to do without being given any instructions.  The unit fits over a standard tension barrier stanchion so it can be flexibly deployed in a variety of ways to suit the needs of different events at the park.
 

frog engaged with Oculus to redesign their early VR headset which at the time was targeted exclusively at high end gamers.  This was one of the first chances I had to lead a program with a fast moving startup. We offered several insights for making VR more accessible to everyday users in order to increase the size of the VR market including minimizing the use of black wherever possible.  In the middle of the design program, Facebook acquired Oculus for $2B.  This experience of working with a startup inspired frog to start its Venture Design practice.

The Honeywell Connected Home Vision project was a massive effort from a multi-disciplinary team of designers, engineers, and strategists.  I was the hardware creative lead managing the Industrial Designers and Mechanical Engineers on the program.  The vision was to create a piece of hardware that seamlessly blended into the home and allowed you to control your heating and cooling largely remotely via the mobile app.  Design details on the thermostat like a thin bezel and tapered sides create a sense of thinness and lightness to the product. The white face is designed to harmonize with the home blending into walls that are typically white.   The crisp edges and even in the choice in typeface speaks to the precision in Honeywell's environmental control systems.  While not all the details made it into the final Lyric Thermostat, we were able to help Honeywell create a beautiful piece of design that subtly harkens back to the original classic T87 Dreyfuss "Round".

The frog Industrial Design team was composed of passionate gamers.  We approached NVIDIA after the release of their "Shield" portable gaming console.  We loved the concept, but the design felt dated (like an old flip phone) and not appropriate for a brand as bleeding edge as NVIDIA.  We developed several more modern integrated takes on the handheld, each inspired by a unique gaming character and presented them to the NVIDIA team as an example of what could be.

The Buckle and Hinge were created by our Industrial Design team at frog as part of the Sound United project and Polk asked us to help bring the products to life.  The headphone design, with its metal and leather accents would require considerably more engineering cleverness than your typical set of plastic cans.  I managed team of Engineers and Designers on the development, detailed engineering, and prototyping of both products.  I also helped develop the PRDs and sourced overseas vendors evaluating their capabilities and bids.  We had many long hours and late nights on the phone with factory in China to get the details right and the time spent shows in the quality of the final product.

The frog Technology team in Austin created an experience called Room E that allowed users to intelligently control their home using a natural combination of gesture and voice.  They asked the PD team to show what some of the sensor enabled products might look like.  I led a pair of Industrial Designers to create this switch panel and light bulb with embedded gesture cameras and microphones.  The tech is probably a few years out, but they look cool.  The idea was published in the New York Times Magazine.

This was a concept project I did at frog as part of a wearable technology competition. The concept of the VIA helmet is that it conveys navigational information via an array of vibration motors in the shell. A compass in the helmet corrects for head orientation and the navigational information is conveyed to the motors by the GPS and application in the rider’s smart phone. The vibration motors can direct the rider to their destination in one of two ways: first, by vibrating “Left” and “Right” motors to offer turn-by-turn directions. Secondly, in teaching mode the motors can vibrate in such a way as to indicate relative proximity to the destination with the vibrations getting stronger when the rider gets closer to the destination. There is emerging research that this type of haptic navigational feedback can, over time, improve one’s sense of direction.  The design was created quickly just to illustrate the idea. I build the Solidworks model in two days.

Bank of America wanted to quickly enter the growing mobile payments market and they came to frog to design the hardware.  I was the creative lead on this project and with Bank of America, identified a couple of problems with the existing mobile payment readers.  First, they tend to rotate on the jack, leading to card misreads.  Second, people tend to lose them leaving the company to replace the readers at their cost.  We designed an innovative pair of tabs that stabilize the reader increasing read reliability.  We also designed a cap that both protects the jack and allows you to attach the reader to a keychain so it never gets lost.  The symmetrical design looks great on any model of smartphone, and a subtle red arrow on the top subtly indicates on which side to align the magnetic strip.

This was a project we did for a cleint with a TV interface that required a remote design that would enable five-way, gesture navigation, and QWERTY input without prenting a visually complex design to the user.  Working in a team of designers, engineers and technologists, we develped both form studies, and a functional protootype to validate a unique interaction model while delivering a form that is both iconic and approachable.

Nautilus came to frog seeking a new design direction for the one of their products whose sales were stagnant despite the unique fitness benefits. We took an aesthetically differentiated approach designing a product that looked like it belonged in the home instead of the gym. As PD engineering lead, I helped frame the numerous mechanical and safety constraints to empower the designers to deliver an iconic form that looked like nothing else on the market.

Most picocells are bland gray metal boxes. A competitive audit lead frog to establish a new slim proportion. At a distance you could immediately identify the Powerwave picocell. The proportion gave directionality and integration into surrounding environments. The design emphasizes technology being at the core of this product. The pico cells have a strong break between the thin body and the bottom heat sink area. The pattern and frequency of the heat sinks visually illustrate the performance of the product.

This was the first project where I was heavily involved in both the business development and design phases of the program.  I met with the Carmanah design and engineering teams to structure the program and frog team composition.  During the project, I oversaw the design process weighing considerations like manufacturability, system architecture, major component placement, and sourcing critical components. I also managed an engineering contractor during the CAD build phase.

Wrigley had purchased the Altoids brand, but had been seeing flagging sales of the historic mint.  They engaged with frog to re-imagine the iconic tin to be something that was more pocket-friendly. We did extensive user research including a factory tour to inform our suite of fresh packaging  designs.  The final concept code-named "Pebble" made it through late stage prototyping and while it was very well received, the company was not able to build a robust enough business case to bring it to full scale production.

This is probably the most unusual product I’ve worked on in my career. It is a medical device for strengthening the pelvic muscle floor to prevent female urinary incontinence. I was responsible for internal component layout, form studies, display component selection and overall manufacturing strategy.

I was the frog engineering lead on the Kodak ESP 7 printer program. I was responsible for helping establish design principles, packaging the printer engine in a way to minimize perceived product size, and helping maintain the design vision while ensuring all external parts were optimized for manufacturing. I also managed the CAD build of the final database ensuring a smooth transition to manufacturing.

I was the engineering lead on this project back in 2007.  We developed a modular approach for future-proofing drives by allowing to swap out a connection module.  I also recommended a passive cooling strategy for thermal management that allowed for fanless operation on the lower cost drives.  Getting the uniform light guide to look like the renderings was really tricky.  We went through several design revisions until the right look was achieved.  I also built CAD databases to ensure that the external housings were free of sink and cosmetic defects.

This Juice Extractor I worked on at frog was part of a family of premium kitchen appliances. Most juicers have an ugly external bar that locks the assembly together and pivots down for disassembly and cleaning. We wanted a more well considered look so I designed an innovative release mechanism that integrates into the form, maintaining the clean design language of the family. To disassemble the juicer, the user slides the lock bar laterally.  Taking inspiration from the way bartenders pour beer into a tilted glass, I designed in an angled plate in the juicer’s pitcher to reduce the amount of foam in the freshly made juice.

Systimax Visipatch Door Mechanism Design - This was a project for Systimax where they wanted to design a door to cover a patch cable system that could open from either the left or the right. We designed the complex mechanism that allows the user to pull on the left handle and the door pivots from the right. When the user pulls on the right handle the door pivots from the left. If the user pivots both handles, they can remove the door completely. It was an industry first and we were awarded a utility patent for the design.

When at frog, we did several hard drives for Maxtor.  These my favorites:

Maxtor One Touch IV External Hard Drives

The vault like design language of the Maxtor One Touch IV Hard Drives is one that exudes security, however, the look is not just aesthetic. The fact that the drives are wider at the base doesn't just make the drives look solid and stable, but allows the PCB to be placed on the bottom. This allows for lower placement of the connectors at the back. Also, the sunken sides of the aluminum side panels allow for optimal heat dissipation by bringing the conductive aluminum closer to the drives.

Maxtor Central Axis Business Edition NAS

 The Maxtor Central Axis Business Edition by Seagate is a Networked Attached Storage (NAS) System. I was the engineering lead from frog on this project. We recognized that it was far better to put the drives in a flat instead of stacked orientation. The slimmer flat design allows the drives inside to dissipate more heat through the aluminum side panels. Cooler disk drives run more efficiently and are more reliable so the data is better protected.

This was my first big frog project.   I was the engineering lead on this project in 2005 working closely with the Industrial Designer and the Interaction Designers to deliver a cohesive user experience including the industrial Design and user interface. I sourced the unique aspect ratio display and the switch technology in the CookWheel which is the primary input method in the user interface. I also built the complex external part files in Pro Engineer which was my first project using the software. To prove out the UI, we built a full scale working appearance model of the oven with a Flash UI prototype using a Mac Mini, Belkin Powermate  knob, and in-car display system.  I worked with the Turbochef team to design the unique hearth-shaped door with rectangular choke to meet microwave safety requirements and resculpted the door before pilot production to allow a stainless steel version to be produced with a progressive die stamping.  I also did detailed mechanical design of upper and lower display assemblies and found suppliers for electronics components like a stepper motor driven clock which could function even during the 225° self-clean mode.  I was named in several patents for this project.

The F-35 JSF Helmet Mounted Display System provides pilots with HUD functionality on a helmet so they can acquire targets anywhere they look. I was part of a team of engineers and designers at Rockwell Collins responsible for the development and windblast testing of the helmet. I designed the mechanism that retracts the entire optical system so the pilot can wipe his eyes, etc. I also did tolerance analysis on the optical system and selected high performance composites used in its construction.  The most exciting part of the project was conducting high speed windblast testing on the helmet using mannequins at special test facilities.  The design has since evolved into the version currently flying, but I’m proud to have worked on the early version – which has been featured in a few Hollywood films.

At CVI Laser (now Melles Griot), I designed a series of optical mounts, coating fixtures, and photonics instruments working closely with both Optical Physicists and expert machinists.  These were highly precise optical tools manufactured via high precision CNC machining.

Over the years, I’ve designed and built a variety of clever products reflecting a mix of utility and whimsy. This is a small selection of some of my favorites.