4.7
One of North America’s Largest, Award-Winning Product Design Firms

Product Design, Development and Transfer to Manufacturing

3D LiDar Mining Scanner
Laser mapping of underground mining cavities.
Wearable Biometric Monitoring
World's first wearable to unlock data in your breath.
Toddler Monitor
Top selling toddler IoT door sensor on the market.
Cloud9 Technologies
VOIP System and Wideband Audio Handset.
TritonWear
Wireless Competitive Swim Tracker
Stanley Healthcare
RDID Pediatric Protection Braclet
ProDrive Dental Systems
Universal High-Speed Dental Drill System
Levy Scooters
Electric Scooter With Swapable Battery Packs
Neurovine
Wearable EEG Headband for Concussion Recovery
Waterotor
Hydrokinetic Generator for Slow-Moving Water
SkyX
Drone Re-Charge Station for Aerial Surveillance
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Trusted to Design, Develop, and Engineer Manufacture-Ready Products by the World’s Most Innovative Brands

What Kind of Product Development Help Do You Need?

What Kind of Product Development Help Are You Looking For?

Whether you’re brand new to creating physical products, have an in-house development team or are a long-time veteran of product development, we have expert teams that work with you to strategize, design, engineer, fully document the details, and transfer product specifications to manufacturing.

Companies with in-house hardware product development

Are you looking for specialists to plug-in and work with your staff to research, refresh, design, or help cost-reduce a key element of your new product concept?

Companies without in-house hardware product development

Does your company or startup need a team of specialists to develop your product concept, source parts and guide the setup of your product manufacturing.

Entrepreneur with a Concept, looking to Develop a Product

Going from your product concept to selling in the market, we offer product development, manufacture and business operations setup services.

From Napkin Sketch to Manufacture-Ready Product, Designed Right the 1st Time

Design 1st integrates our knowledge and expertise with yours to bring your product idea to life

Video 1:30min – How the Design 1st team works with you.

The Product Design Experience You Need

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1,000+

Products Developed

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25+

Years in Business​

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75+

Design Awards

4.7

What Clients Say About Working With Design 1st

George Tsintzouras

Director of Product, Christie Digital

Immediately understood what was needed

When we wanted to transition our older generation projector models to a more modern look and feel, Design 1st was a valuable asset. Given the depth of their design and engineering experience, Design 1st immediately understood what was needed. They worked with our internal engineering team through the process to provide us with compatible solutions to meet our needs.

Stephen Rayment

VP Engineering, Ericsson

Our trusted engineering partner for six years

Design 1st has been our trusted industrial design and mechanical engineering partner for over six years and they have proven themselves to be valuable, competent and committed to our success. They add value because they understand the tradeoffs between user value and cost, the need to balance both the business and product objectives, along with excellent knowledge of materials and manufacturing / tooling options.

Mike Tettenborn

VP Engineering, Caframo

Right balance of art and engineering

We selected Design 1st because their designers and engineers demonstrated the right creativity and technical understanding. With their CAD and modelling tools they were able to address the numerous design challenges encountered with this type of product. The end result was an easy-to-install, powerful marine hatch fan – unlike any on the market.

Kurt Francis

Co-Founder, CTO, Molecule

Deepest bench of technical talent

I did a lot of due diligence on product development companies and Design 1st had the deepest bench for technical capability. They worked on such a broad range of products with successful commercialization. Design 1st’s early efforts in prototype development helped us move from a powder substrate into a commercially product for testing.

John Lipton

Director of Engineering, GeoSight

Got up and running fast

The whole design was my idea and I had patents on them. The team’s main work was to solve the functionality issue of a piece of my design. On top of that, they helped identify one of our manufacturers.

Didi Horn

CTO, SkyX

Exceeded Our Expectations

The Design 1st team exceeded our expectations and helped us deliver an exceptional product to the market. As a startup, we were working within a budget but expected the highest quality product. Design 1st identified the risks up front, had the vast network of partners to find the right components, and customized it to meet our unique needs.

End-to-End Product Development Capabilities

Our skilled team works collaboratively across eight specialized areas of expertise. From start to finish, we find the right solutions to transform your initial idea into a reliable and useful product.

Research your category and lay solid project plans. Our cost-effective up-front analysis and user value testing provide a clearer picture of your competition, price/cost options, patent strategy, customer-valued features, market specific requirements, and more.

Transform your vision into a useful engaging product. Whether in the same room or collaborating from a distance with our state-of-the-art conferencing tools, we work closely with you and your team to brainstorm, develop concepts, and iteratively refine these ideas into a business-oriented product solution.
Engineer products that perform on every level. Our engineering team has the analysis tools and technical expertise to help you reduce risk and solve tough problems. Tricky assembly; sophisticated materials selection; novel manufacturing processes; complex stress, thermal, or vibration concerns – whatever your technical hurdles, we can help.
Add intelligence and connectivity to your product. From industrial instruments and medical devices to Internet-connected consumer products and everything between, we have the electronics design experience to reliably navigate power, high speed circuitry, battery power and radios to deliver our piece of the market-ready product.
Seamless integration of electronics into new products. Embedded software plays a critical role with custom code to integrate all functions of a new product. Our expert team of software developers works with the development team to design and code compact efficient software with a small memory footprint and low power requirements.
Show and validate your design early to reduce your risk. Prototypes are essential when developing physical products. With our in-house prototype shop and established network of reliable suppliers, we build thousands of prototypes yearly, including demonstration units.
supplychain-mfg-sourcing
Finding unique and critical parts and a reliable supplier is challenging. Ensuring quality during volume production is critical to your product’s success. Obtaining low defect rates for dozens of critical components is challenging. We help you find, assess and specify requirements for key and critical challenging parts in a new product design.
Transfer to Manufacturing . We leverage our manufacturing supplier network and find suppliers for challenging new parts required, integrating supplier selection and manufacturing realities into the early stage development process.

End-to-End Product Development Capabilities

Our skilled team works collaboratively across eight specialized areas of expertise. From start to finish, we find the right solutions to transform your initial idea into a reliable and useful product.

Research your category and lay solid project plans.

Our cost-effective up-front analysis and user value testing provides a clearer picture of your competition, price/cost options, patent strategy, customer valued features, market specific requirements, and more.

Transform your vision into a useful engaging product.

Whether in the same room or collaborating from a distance with our state-of-the-art conferencing tools, we work closely with you and your team to brainstorm, develop concepts, and iteratively refine these ideas into a business-oriented product solution.

Engineer products that perform on every level.

Our engineering team has the analysis tools and technical expertise to help you reduce risk and solve tough problems. Tricky assembly; sophisticated materials selection; novel manufacturing processes; complex stress, thermal, or vibration concerns – whatever your technical hurdles, we can help.

Add intelligence and connectivity to your product.

From industrial instruments and medical devices to Internet-connected consumer products and everything between, we have the electronics design experience to reliably deliver the whole market-ready product.

Seamless integration of electronics into new products.

Embedded software plays a critical role in the optimal function of physical products. Our expert team of software and firmware developers works together to design compact software with a small memory footprint and low power requirements.

Show and validate your design early, reduce your risk.

Prototypes are essential when developing physical products. With our in-house modeling and fabrication capabilities, and our established network of reliable prototype suppliers, we build thousands of models and prototypes each year for all kinds of physical products and demonstration units.

supplychain-mfg-sourcing

Build your global chain from the ground up.

Ensuring quality during volume production is paramount to your business success. Obtaining low defect rates for dozens of critical functioning components is always a challenge. We help you put a quality program in place for the contract manufacturer to follow and report on.

Quickly get your design into reliable production.

To design a great product, you must know the process. 70% of a product’s cost is locked-in during the early design stage, so we apply our extensive knowledge of manufacturing right at the start of your project.

Awards & Certifications

Design1st projects have received 75+ awards and we hold 1000+ patents.

Case Studies

Learn how companies, like yours, have gotten their product to market faster with Design1st

Helpful Resources