Austin Industrial Design Guild

The team at MAKO Design + Invent strongly believes that in order to achieve higher expectations and performance standards within the industrial design and product development realms, it is necessary to develop a space where community leaders can learn, collaborate, and unite for a common cause.

After meeting and working with so many positive and revolutionary design leaders in our industry in Austin, we knew it was the perfect time to collaboratively build an organization that brings our industry together.

We are thrilled to introduce the Austin Industrial Design Help Guild, a local non-profit association dedicated to establishing a path of mastery for Austin’s physical product development professionals.

We had a very successful first I.D. Guild social event last Friday where 25 industry professionals from companies such as Dell, National Instruments, AMD, Core77, AutoDesk, and Cisco, along with a number of Austin Industrial Design Help Firms, got together for a fun and engaging game of Texas Stars hockey at Cedar Park Center.

In the days following, we received tremendous encouragement, advice, and even a couple of sponsorship offers!  We were pleased to see that there are so many people who are just as passionate as we are about forming a positive group for Austin’s Industrial Design community.

The three main pillars of the I.D. Guild are:

1. To provide advanced education – Mastering the science and art of physical product design.
2. To meet and collaborate – Awesome social events so that we can meet those who can help us solve complex and revolutionary design challenges together.
3. To be a unified voice – Promoting the Austin physical product development community nationally in order to boost Austin further as a major global Industrial Design hub.

Thanks to sponsorship, the I.D. Guild and its events are completely free. We maintain a high degree of quality and integrity by growing membership through referrals/invites only. It is designed (no pun intended!) for independent design and engineering professionals, design firms, patent agents, hardware firms, and manufacturers in the Austin area.

The I.D. Guild is planning a full calendar of diverse events!  As a teaser of things to come:

• Our first Industrial Design workshop
• A Circuit of the Americas afternoon
• Exposure at SXSW
• A Pitch night
• A Polo match

We look forward to seeing you at future events!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!