If you're looking for an industrial designer, you'll find no shortage of firms, studios, and freelancers. Most of them will show you renderings. Some will show you prototypes. Very few will start by asking the question that actually matters: why does this product need to exist?
That's where I start.
I've spent over 25 years designing products for some of the most demanding companies in the world — 3M, Burberry, Herman Miller, Humanscale, Issey Miyake, Jaguar, Caesarstone, and the City of New York, among others. I've brought more than 200 products to market and hold over two dozen patents. Phaidon published my monograph — the first for an American designer. I've been nominated for the National Design Award seven times.
But the work I'm most proud of isn't defined by awards. It's defined by outcomes. Products that created new categories. Products that commanded premium pricing because they were genuinely differentiated. Products that made the companies behind them more valuable.
That's the difference between industrial design as a service and industrial design as a strategic discipline.
I call my approach context-based design. Before anything is sketched, I work to understand the full ecosystem a product will live in — the competitive landscape, the manufacturing realities, the market dynamics, the cultural moment, and the business objectives behind the brief. Design decisions that come from that understanding don't just look right. They perform.
I've served as Creative Director for Georg Jensen, Humanscale, and HBF — roles that required leading not just product design but the entire design vision of an organization. That experience shapes how I work today. Whether the engagement is a single product, a portfolio overhaul, or an embedded leadership role, I bring the same perspective: design is a business tool, and a powerful one, when it's grounded in context.
I work directly with founders, CEOs, and leadership teams. Not through layers of account managers. Not with a bench of junior designers interpreting the brief. The person you talk to is the person doing the work.
If you're looking for a designer who can think at the level of your business — not just your product — I'd welcome a conversation.
studio@toddbracher.com
— Todd Bracher