My Design Philosophy (and the Patterns I Refuse to Compromise On)

Most products fail long before manufacturing.
They fail at thinking.

I don’t believe in “beautiful concepts”, trend-chasing, or design theatre. I believe in products that survive reality—engineering, users, costs, factories, and time.

Over 18+ years of designing real, manufactured products, a few non-negotiable patterns have emerged in my work:

1. Engineering is not a constraint. It’s the foundation.
If a design can’t be explained in terms of forces, tolerances, materials, and assembly, it’s not design—it’s artwork. I start where most designers panic: mechanisms, part breakup, and manufacturability.

2. Simplicity beats cleverness. Every time.
If a product needs explaining, it’s already weak. Fewer parts. Clear functions. Obvious interactions. Cleverness is ego. Simplicity is respect for the user and the factory.

3. Form follows usage, not Pinterest.
I don’t design for dribbble likes. I design for hands, fatigue, misuse, dust, heat, vibration, and idiots. A product that looks good but feels wrong is a failure.

4. Plastic is not cheap. Bad plastic is.
Most plastic products are ugly because designers don’t understand tooling, draft, ribs, shut-offs, or textures. When you respect injection molding, plastic becomes premium—not toy-like.

5. A product must justify its existence.
If it doesn’t solve a real problem better, cheaper, or more reliably than what already exists, it deserves to die early. I’d rather kill a bad idea in CAD than defend it in the market.

6. Design is a business tool, not decoration.
Good design reduces BOM, simplifies assembly, shortens development cycles, and increases trust. If it doesn’t move at least one business needle, it’s cosmetic nonsense.

7. Recurring pattern in my work:
– Mechanism-led layouts
– Honest materials
– Calm, purposeful aesthetics
– Manufacturing-first decisions
– Zero tolerance for visual noise

I’m not interested in awards.
I’m interested in products that get manufactured, sold, used, and reordered.

That’s the bar. Everything else is noise.