Please join the IDSA San Francisco Chapter as we unlock the secrets on how to start and run a successful design consultancy. We will hear from some of Bay Area’s successful design leaders about their experiences and the diverse paths they took to found and run their own thriving design consultancies.
*This event is generously hosted by Whipsaw. Please note that parking is limited at their studio, we highly suggest ride sharing
Brett Lovelady
Brett founded ASTRO Studios in 1994 to innovatively blend design, technology and lifestyle insights into a wide range of iconic, culture defining products and brands. Since then Brett has become one of Americas top design leaders, advocating for design and directing some of the world’s most culturally relevant products and brands, while helping clients generate billions in new revenue worldwide.
ASTRO & Brett have worked on hundreds of products and brands, from Fortune 100 clients to start-ups, receiving numerous industry and design awards including 2018 Fast Company Most Innovative Companies in Design Award. Additionally, ASTRO has received 2 BusinessWeek Design of the Decade Awards and 7 nominations for Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards. Project highlights include: Nike’s Triax Watch Series, the Nike Fuelband, Microsoft Xbox360gaming console, Shinola Electric & Audio, Bose Sleepbuds and many more. Prior to ASTRO, Brett was VP of Design at Frog Design & Lunar respectively and started his career as a designer in with the Advanced Concept Team at Tandem Computers.
Also, in 2008, Brett co-founded and spun-off, venture backed ASTRO Gaming Inc., extending the ASTRO design brand into a hi-performance e-sports brand. Brett was the CEO until 2011 when ASTRO Gaming achieved #13 on the INC. 500 fastest growing companies list, then was acquired by pre-IPO, Skullcandy Inc., who in 2017 sold it to Logitech to take the brand worldwide.
Nichole Rouillac
Nichole is creative director and co-founder at level. She has deep experience taking complex new technologies and shaping them into forms that foster emotional connections between consumers and brands. Her work has helped to create new industry categories and propelled products into the spotlight–garnering industry awards and recognition. Before founding level, she was associate creative director at HTC and Lead Designer at One & Co. Nichole is the Chair of IDSA Women In Design and has a mission to bring balance to the industrial design field at large.
Maaike Evers
Born and bred in The Netherlands, Maaike brings a progressively Dutch and uniquely female perspective to Industrial Design. Equally inspired by the tradition of craft and potential of industry, she has developed complex high-tech products as well as artful projects. Maaike co-founded the experimental design studio Mike & Maaike in San Francisco. The studio is formed as a design laboratory where self initiated and client projects are approached with the same level of passion, experimentation and optimism. In 2011 Mike & Maaike were acquired by Google where Maaike helped build industrial design culture, collaborating with scientists and engineers to build new hardware experiences for IoT, mobile devices, wearables, health monitoring, autonomous systems, alternative power and VR. Recently, Mike & Maaike gained independence from Google to re-form their San Francisco studio. Some highlights of Maaike’s prolific design career include Google’s first phone, Google’s first VR headset, the ATNMBL driverless car, the Windowseat Lounge and the Artifort Terp tables and pouffs. Maaike’s work has received over 40 international design awards and she is named on over 50 patents. Maaike was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business.
Dan Harden
Dan is President, CEO, Principal Designer and cofounder of Whipsaw Inc., a highly acclaimed design firm in San Jose and San Francisco California. Whipsaw designs diverse products and experiences for companies around the world including Brita, Cisco, Ford, GE, Google, Haier, Intel, Leitz, Merck, Motorola, Nike, Olympus, Samsung, Sony, TP-Link, Uber, and many exciting startups including Blumio, Bossanova, Ekso Bionics, Harry’s, Highfive, Peloton, Tascent and Tile. Dan is the highly active creative force of Whipsaw, where he directs the strategic and conceptual direction of most client accounts. His passion and experience combined with his personal philosophies about art, culture, psychology and technology permeate the work and the brand.
Throughout his prolific career Dan has designed hundreds of successful products ranging from baby bottles to supercomputers. Some of these hits include the Google Chromecast and OnHub, Nest Dropcam cameras, Brita Stream water purifiers, Dell’s Precision line, Cisco Telepresence systems, Livescribe smart pens, Eton emergency radios, Adiri baby bottles, Yubo lunch boxes, Highfive teleconferencing, Intel healthcare tablets, IGT and Aristocrat slot machines, Leapfrog LeapPads, Roku TV devices, the Pano Logic computer, TP-Link networking devices, Topcon survey equipment, the Braun Thermoscan thermometer, Motorola cell phones, the Gateway PC line, Sony headsets, the original Acer Aspire PC line, NeXT computers, Oracle Network Computers, Logitech mice, and the first digital answering machine for AT&T.
Prior to cofounding Whipsaw in 1999, Dan was VP and President of Frogdesign where he designed many notable products for luminaries like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch. Before joining Frogdesign in 1989 he was a lead designer at Henry Dreyfuss Associates. In the early eighties Dan interned with design master George Nelson. He also interned at Hewlett Packard and Richardson Smith (later became Fitch). Dan graduated from the University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture and Art in 1982.
