Full-Service Industrial Design Experts
Trusted to Design, Develop, and Engineer Manufacture-Ready Products for Startups and the World’s Most Innovative Brands
What You’ll Get With Our Industrial Design Services
Industrial design support follows a rigorous 3-step process giving you a highly-functional design you’ll love
Design Concepts
Starting with your product vision, we work with you to identify the target user and explore visual concepts of potential solutions through sketching.
Once a direction is chosen, the team creates appealing product models and integrates these concept ideas with practical and feasible engineering architectures.
You’ll receive final design concepts captured in 3D CAD models to allow feedback from clients, users, and other stakeholders.
Design Models
As you move from product concept options to a chosen design, our team builds physical prototypes that replicate the product experience to test and ensure a rewarding user experience.
We bring select product concepts to life using various in-house prototype methods, including 3D printing or rapid CNC machining.
You’ll receive high-quality prototypes that meet your specific design requirements. Form, color, material selection, and finish are all part of the specifications we provide, as the product development proceeds.
Refine Chosen Design
Using the latest tools for creativity and virtual collaboration, we’ll work with your team until you’re happy with the design concepts.
We’ll host a series of in-person or virtual meetings through our state-of-the-art interactive whiteboard, allowing immersive sketching, brainstorming, and collaboration around your product idea.
You’ll get a final design that is ready to move to the next stage in product development.
Industrial Design Expertise
Concept Creation
Meeting all your Industrial Design needs, we can:
- Evaluate competitive products and useful functions
- Sketch potential product features, options and benefits
- Visualize options with 3 dimensional Computer geometry
- Build and test out unique high value design elements
Human Factors Design
Providing you with insight into user preference, we can:
- Research context related user information to aid decisions
- Apply behavioral and ergonomic expertise to your design
- Evaluate user interface options using interactive simulation
- Conduct fast and low cost evaluation testing of hypotheses
Brand Design
- Design brand elements, including: logos, labels, and other aesthetic elements
- Find ways to differentiate the new high value elements of a design that are critical to convey so your product stands out.
Packaging Design
Offering you a range of product design services, we can:
- Create unique, professional product packaging and graphics documentation
Create mock-ups of packaging options and the graphics to visualize, test and optimize the customer experience
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.
Portfolio of Projects
Across every industry, our team excels at developing technically-complex projects.
SkyX – Drone Recharging Station
Ridemaster – Motorcycle Communication
Heatstone – Outdoor Radiant Heating
Zumio – Clitoral Stimulator
vSculpt – Pelvic Floor Toning
TravelWay – Lunch Box Container
Toddler Monitor – Safety Door Sensor
thinkRF – RF Spectrum Analyzer
TabloTV – OTA DVR for Cordcutters
Stanley – Pediatric Protection Bracelet
SoloRolo – Myofascial Release Ball
Rumidifier – Zero Energy Humidifier
Fully Certified and Award-Winning
Our company and staff are certified with the Professional Engineers of Ontario and with ACIDO certified Industrial Designers of Ontario. We are also affiliated with Carleton University.
A Tailored Team of Experts
When you work with Design 1st, you’re accessing a tailored, cross-functional team of specialists customized for your specific project. As your project evolves, so too does the team working on it, so you get only the most expert people providing input every step of the way.
Embedded Systems
Seamless integration of electronics into physical devices.
Embedded Design Team
Mechanical Engineering
Find creative mechanical solutions to technical challenges.
Mechanical Design Team
Industrial Design
Transform your product concept into a refined manufacture-ready design.
Industrial Design Team
Electronics Engineering
Add power, secure connectivity, and interaction control to your products.
Electronic Design Team
Transfer to Manufacturing
Move your product into volume manufacturing.
Manufacture Transfer Team
Design Strategy
Set your new product up for success with a well-laid plan.
Design Strategy Team
Frequently Asked Questions
The answer depends on the nature of the work you hire us to do. The work may be support-related where we contribute design or engineering services to your product development team and process. The time required varies from a week to much longer depending on the activities you require from us. When our team takes your product concept from the idea stage all the way to a working product, it may take from 3 to 12+ months to complete the 4-stage design-engineering-prototyping and transfer to manufacturing process. It depends on the complexity of the product being designed.
Once the design concept is captured, engineering decisions are finalized and the product is 3D prototyped and documented, making it possible for manufacturers to bid on making the product in volume.
Our creative design, engineering and manufacturing transfer team finds solutions that differentiate your product and delivers the ‘I love it’ user response. Your design is carefully created to meet product cost that meets business needs. The documentation is well-defined and managed with manufacturers that want to produce it.
Our manufacturing setup experts will help you identify and secure trusted part suppliers and a contract manufacturer (CM) onshore, or offshore, depending your product objectives and needs.
We can facilitate the prototyping and product builds, from helping coordinate the CM and parts supplier relationships, to overseeing product batch builds, injection tooling approvals, release controlled documentation, quality plans, regulatory testing, Bill of Materials managements, and parts supply coordination.
Yes, we can navigate, negotiate, document and fine-tune product quality during the initial production batch builds and through to continuous production.
Our process ensures we bring value during the development stage, and we transition the product management as your operations team decides to take over manufacturing control.
However, if your business objectives require a more virtual, low-overhead operation, we can also stay on how to facilitate batch production builds.
The Design 1st team works with strategic business teams looking to reduce risk and cost and maximize product value.
We are an excellent fit for business teams new to hardware product development who want an expert team to plug in and move their concept design to volume production. We are experts at network products, wireless app and cloud integrations
Our diverse team of planners, designers, engineers, electronics and supply strategy experts makes the transition from product concept to manufacturing a much more predictable process.
NDA’s ensure confidentiality for both parties during conversations. We provide a mutual NDA where the terms apply to both parties. If your organization has an NDA that requires our signature, we handle this through email.
Development is a multiple-month effort. We recommend that funding is ready for the first few months as we are a work-for-hire organization and new projects require a deposit to start the work, typically covering the first months’ effort.
Designing a new hardware product starts with exploring possible Concept Designs (CD).
Our business, marketing and design teams work with you to plan out key product requirements then configure one, or more, potential product concepts to test and verify with users and buyers.
Our experienced development team will then facilitate and help you define the many product requirements, carry out the creative design and engineering process, examine manufacturing feasibility, and provide an ongoing estimate of the direct product cost as details are filled in and decisions on parts and quality are made.
For a new product concept, the design exploration and the product architecture definition stages typically take 200+ hours, but this timeline depends on the user buyer definition, complexity, and customization of the design relative to product in the market, the number of custom components required, product safety requirements, and the amount of documentation required.
Expert fully integrated product Design / Engineering teams in North America have rates from $125 to $400 USD per hour.
After a phone discussion, we can provide a design budget, based on your project’s specific needs.
Call us for a discussion: 1.877.235.1004 or click here for more information on our development stages.
The Measures Taken To Ensure Your Industrial Design Success
Design 1st undertakes a rigorous design review process to bring your product ideas to life.
