Services
Each customer has a different set of facilites and capabilites to develop a product up to mass production. Thanks to our long-term experience and collaboration activities, we are able to add what is individually needed for a successful market launch - no matter if mechanical engineering, prototyping, tooling, series production, market analysis, new brand and innovation strategies, packaging, project management or many more.
The graphic below shows our service modules executed internally and in cooperation with our experienced long-term development partners. These modules can be individually selected and combined - depending on the individual requirements.
Research
Designing new, innovative products particularly for a cut throat mass market requires a deep exploration of potential users aspirations and improvements. All related aspects like users behaviour, users experience, features, competitor products, feasability, brand awareness and many more have to be taken into account. We start with an analysis of the current market situation - locally and globally - analyse and describe the main competitor products, users painpoints and aspirations, trends in design, technology and social / demographic aspects. A visualisation of different design approaches helps to develop an understanding both ways - about what the customer wants and how we would imagine to achieve the product's success. Developing household and kitchen products for the chinese market for instance requires a deep understanding about living and cooking in China, about Chinese likes and dislikes, user behaviour, competitor products, etc.
Design Strategy & Innovation
One of our strengths as designers is the change of perspective or role reversal. We think about innovative products alternately from the perspective of the visionary, the aesthete, as an enthusiastic advocate of user needs and clever usage qualities, but also as mediators of effort and costs, guardians of competitiveness and problem-solvers in terms of implementation. From this holistic approach and in connection with trend monitoring, experience and constant exchange with customers from various product areas, we develop out of the box approaches and accompany product developments as strategic design partners. Together with our customers - as shown below with designers from US company Moen Inc. in an innovation workshop in Frankfurt - or internally in group discussions - we develop ideas, concepts and visions for new, innovative products and user experiences and we can transfer them into tangible designs and prototypes.
Industrial Design
This is our passion. The unique magic created by a well designed product. Shape and proportions are well balanced, material, surfaces, colours and haptical experience nice to look at, touch and grab. It creates daily joy just to look at and a moment of surprise and satisfaction each time experiencing it's cleverly designed details and usability. No matter what task or challenge - if technically complex products like professional cleaning devices, high-end refrigerators, coffee machines, complete household product families or more simple ones like kitchen helpers, digital data storage devices - it all has the potential of beauty, innovative usability and competitive feasability. That's what we are thriving for.
Mechanical Engineering Concept Phase
Talking about passion - besides look and feel, attractiveness and user experience - the "Design For Manufacturing" concept phase is part of our internal core activities, no matter if preliminary definition of plastic parts' feasability friendly geometry or complex mechanical structures with lots of moving elements as rendered in the picture below showing parts of a towel dispenser working without power supply. Thinking far into feasability, housing structure, assembly and potential molding issues belongs to our daily business. Early mockups, showing shape, size, proportions, handling or assembly are essential for judgement and discussion. 3D printing runs almost all day long.
Visualisation & Communication
We present ideas and concepts in different techniques either emphazing the conceptual character or inscenating it in an attractively realistic image or animation. High end renderings are an efficient and impressive way to promote a product internally or externally on websites, shows or crowd funding campaigns.
Promotional videos from animated 3D-data are an easy and very helpful way to draw attention to the product as seen here demonstrating the innovative idea of a smartphone hub for bicycles by the Frankfurt based startup COBI - now part of BOSCH. Visualisation is the vehicle for our ideas to come to life. It delivers a precise imagination of how products, details or handling experiences and processes will look like.
User Interface Design
Many products we design are equipped with a display delivering information and operability. We create User Interface concepts and deliver complete operability and menu structures. In cooperation with our partners we care about graphical file output and coding.
We are particularly interested in new ways of UI/UX/ID implementation. Seemless screens, a symbiotic coexistence of UI and the overall appearance of the product is what we find most challenging and interesting to achieve. Designing a new UI operable product always includes the aspect of smart and innovative combinations of UI and hardware. The picture above shows an example with a touchbar in a rotating oven handle, which allows to adapt the viewing angle for a quick overview and comfortable operating.
Graphic and Web-Design
You need a brochure to promote your product, a company logo, corporate brand identity or entire website ?
We take care about it.
Packaging
Our packaging design activities include a wide area of requirements from cardboard boxes, plastic cases, tubes or cans up to advanced bottle designs for beverages and more complex cases for transportation and protection of precious equipment in the area of medical or industrial products.
Mechanical Engineering & Prototyping
In cooperation with our long-term development partners in Germany and China we have excellent experience in delivering all steps necessary to turn a design concept into a feasable, cost-aware product, perfectly planned and designed for mass production. Complex engineering and prototyping are our partners' core businesses and many different collaboration projects helped to established a quick and efficient communication to transfer our design and preliminary engineering concepts into the precise definition of all parts as 2D- and 3D-drawings ready for tooling and manufacturing.
Electronic Development & Testing
Our electronics partner in Germany - DIN EN ISO-9001 and DIN EN ISO-13485 certified - develops PCBs, takes charge of testing, product implementation and final assembly.
Tooling
In a constant exchange of 3D design data, comments and discussions with our partners, tools are made, further optimized and finally authorized to be ready for series production.
Series Production
To best fit our customers needs, we offer different partnering strategies for series production. The decision between basically 3 strategies has to be balanced mainly between the factors of cost, supply chain safety and the relevance of "Made in Germany".
1. Tools are made in China, delivered to our development and production partner in Germany, who takes charge of fine tuning, electronic components implementation and assembly.
2. Tooling and parts delivery from our experienced, high quality oriented partner in China, assembly and electronic components implementation executed by our electronics partner in Germany.
3. Tooling, production and assembly from our experienced, high quality oriented partner in China.
4 examplory case-studies
Depending on individual requirements we are capable of supporting product developments with a perfectly balanced set of service moduls. Here we see 4 different examplory full-service projects.
Customer A - A global player outside the EU mainly selling White Ware and home appliances asks for our deep research and analysis of local and global market opportunities for a product family in a highly cut throat market. We analyse market, trends, existing painpoints, innovation potential and create new solutions and design directions for a highly desirable series of innovative products.
Customer B - A mid-sized company having successfully established a series of innovative therapy devices asks us to develop the new flagship product fully equipped with new and highly innovative technical features. We provide full service in cooperation with our partners: Product design, UI design for the devices‘ interface as well as UI/UX and coding for the app, packaging, website, brochure, product video and project management.
Customer C - A start-up asks for our support to develop an innovative and fresh product concept. Together we discuss and explore all facettes of the user experience potential, create an outstanding design, help with appealing product images and animations for crowd funding and deliver the network and project management for mechanical engineering, prototyping and manufacturing.
Customer D - A start-up developed an almost finished product concept including structure and design. They asks us to finish the appearance with final CMF definition, choose appropriate production methods, care about the DFM (design for manufacturing), provide a network of reliable partners for product realisation and to take charge of the project management.