We’re sure that everyone could agree that 2019 was a huge year! From the amazing inventions, innovations, trends, and powerful design movements that shook the core of what we understood design to be, 2019 was a great year for accomplishing big goals and revolutionizing the way we interpret and approach the design world.
In the eyes of our team at MAKO Design + Invent, continuously working and striving to be one of the biggest leading product design and product development firms within North America, we sought to achieve and improve not only the services and quality that we deliver to our clients but push design and innovation within the consumer product market to new levels.
Reflecting on all our 2019 accomplishments and design accomplishments, we’ve compiled some of our favorite parts of 2019 into one blog!
Our 2019 Award Wins as a Leading Product Development Firm
At MAKO Design + Invent, we are continuously humbled by being recognized and awarded for all our design and innovation efforts! Over the past year, we were delighted to receive a great handful of amazing and exemplary awards that helped showcase and highlight our hard work and passion.
Some of our favorite awards that helped personify MAKO Design + Invents 2019 accomplishments include our wins from Growth500, which named us as one of Canada’s top 100 fastest-growing companies, winning gold for the Indigo Design Awards – for the Benetti Watch design by our Senior Industrial Designer, Rob Colgan – and receiving a Gold nomination in the Creativepool Award competition and winning Gold for excellent product design in the German Design Awards for the GoFish Cam.
If you’re interested in seeing all the awards and accolades that MAKO Design + Invent has accomplished, reiterating ourselves as a leading product development firm, browse the awards section of our blog to see more!
Expanding our Offices to Miami, Florida!
By far, one of the biggest, most important highlights and 2019 accomplishments that we’ve had this year has been expanding our company to a new location! If you are familiar with our offices, you’ll know that we currently have two main offices – our headquarters in Toronto and our main office in Austin, Texas as our main location within the United States.
One of our main goals as a growing and leading product development firm is to expand our services across North America – and worldwide! So, we took a big step this year as a company and opened up a bright new location in Miami, Florida.
Shortly after we opened our bright, loft-style office, we welcomed two new members to the MAKO team, Jared and Sophie! Jared joined our design team, taking over as a mechanical designer, whereas Sophie, our youngest member, joined as our newest industrial designer!
As our company continues to grow within the new decade, we hope to have more successful and happy clients having worked with our Miami office team and possibly some more team members to join!
Ryerson Student Innovation Award Goes to Genecis Bioindustries
As a leading product development firm, we fully encourage and support motivating the younger and leading generations to take the initiative to get involved in the design, tech, and invention field. At MAKO, we strongly believe that the future of innovation and design can be revolutionized by the young, bright minds of future generations.
For this reason, MAKO Design + Invent took our own initiative to help support young inventors by creating the Ryerson Student Innovation Award! Every year, a student team is chosen to receive a 10, 500$ prize to help assist and fund their dreams of transforming their product, prototypes, and ideas into reality and a successful business!
For this year’s Student Innovation Award, we awarded the student group Genecis Bioindustries. Genecis’ mission is to make premium chemicals and materials accessible. In order to do so, they are commercializing their first product life of high-quality biodegradable plastic that can be used to make thermo-resistant packaging, compostable coffee pods, and 3D printing filaments. As a result, their innovation is working to help the planet’s waste problem.
How a Leading Product Development Firm Ensures Our Client Successes for the Year
Not only did MAKO Design + Invent achieve a lot, but a ton of 2019 accomplishments were achieved by none other than our cherished and hardworking clients! Working with a leading product development firm with MAKO, not only do we put effort into creating some of the best and world-class designs that further push the world of innovation, but we develop very close relationships with our clients!
Client relationships are a huge factor for us, as we want to ensure that the quality of work that we deliver to our clients is exactly what our clients are looking for and will be satisfied with. As a team, we work hard daily to make sure that each and every client’s invention ideas are built into a reality – no matter the project, we aim for success! As such, our clients met and reached numerous amazing and outstanding accomplishments during 2019.
The Tri-plunger on Global TV
One of our clients who really shined this year was Bob Ginther! Bob approached the MAKO Team with a passion for finding a solution that would not only make his job easier but also improve the lives of others all over the world.
He invented the Tri-Plunger, a plunger that is strategically shaped in a triangular form making it more efficient to unclog stubborn toilets. After careful designing and prototyping, Bob was able to send his final product to mass production and has seen immense success in the reviews and results of his product!
Bob was featured in multiple media and news outlets highlighting his success as a thriving small business owner, and he also reached his ultimate goal of selling his product along home and hardware store shelves nationwide!
Want to learn more about Bob’s story working with MAKO? Check out his Client Spotlight!
Alison Brett nominated for Mompreneur of the Year
Alison Brett is a client that gave us not only pride but joy when working with at MAKO Design + Invent. As a busy mother of four, Alison came to MAKO with a strong determination in order to build a product that she knew could help people everywhere.
Tired of struggling with putting on bracelets on her own, she created Clasp Magic, a genius device that makes it possible to lock and attach any type of bracelet all on your own without the help of a third party.
Since the release of her product, Alison has thrived as a mother and entrepreneur, passionately achieving new goals and dreams every day as her product helps more and more people every day. In light of all her hard work, she was recently nominated for Mompreneur of the Year!
Read more about Alison’s story with Clasp Magic in her client spotlight.
Celebrities Jessica Alba and Tory Spelling Partner with our Client, Moonlite!
By far one of our most successful clients and designs is a popular and innovative children’s product, Moonlite! Created by our client, Natalie Rebot, Moonlite is an innovative and new way for parents to spend time with their children by projecting traditional and well-loved bedtime stories through the flashlight located on the back of smartphones!
Her product gained immediate success as she expanded her collection of stories and sold her product nationwide, which is now seen on store shelves everywhere! Along the journey of her successes, her product was endorsed by major celebrities such as Jessica Alba and Tory Spelling, who loved the concept, functionality, and performance of her product. This was a major 2019 accomplishment that any small business owner or home inventor would surely be proud of!
Visit our featured blog on the success of Moonlite here!
MAKO Design as a Leading Product Development Firm to Sponsor Make48 for its 3rd Season!
At MAKO Design + Invent we pride ourselves in the initiatives we take to help inspire and motivate the community within the design and invention field. For this reason, a major 2019 accomplishment as a leading product development firm, we make sure to sponsor and collaborate with others to reach out to different communities and audiences to help teach and inform all about the world of design, creativity, and innovation! One of our partnerships that MAKO Design looks forward to both sponsoring and working with is the popular invention show, Make48! We consider having the opportunity to work alongside Make48 for another year a huge 2019 accomplishment not only for us as a design company but also in our efforts to help inspire and encourage design to inventors around the world.
Make48 is one of the world’s fastest and most competitive inventions show across America that challenges inventors across the nation to invent a product, prototype it, and compete against other teams made of creative and talented inventors just like themselves! Inspiring, motivating, and teaching others about the product development process, MAKO is proud to be able to support and sponsor such a great program that helps to teach others worldwide all about inventing! Not only are we a sponsor, but our very own director of strategy, Tim Uys features on the show as a special judge to help give insightful feedback and advice on how to further perfect their product.
Recognition as a Most Valuable Brand in Industry Wired
To finish off the year, MAKO Design + Invent was thrilled to get the news that we’ve been listed as one of the most valuable brands in 2019 by Industry Wired! As a leading product development firm, we focus on bringing quality and success to our client’s inventions and products as we turn their ideas and projects into reality.
While we continuously strive to deliver our best, we are continuously working on building MAKO as a brand and resource that inventors and design enthusiasts around the world can rely on for all their information on invention and design needs. Our goals are focused on becoming a major leader in helping people bring their ideas to life and to continue teaching innovation and design to people worldwide.
For these reasons, we were delighted to be named one of the most valuable brands of 2019, capping off our 2019 accomplishments as growing both as a successful and leading product development firm and a brand that helps inspire, motivate and encourage growth within the design, innovation and invention realm. Looking over Industry Wired’s two-page spread, we were impressed and humbled by how much the team and Industry Wired took to looking into our company history, values, roles, and efforts within the design and innovation community and highlighting both our accomplishments, awards, client work and our CEO, Kevin Mako!
We encourage everyone who is curious about who we are, our company culture and history, our work and accomplishments to take a peek and read the article for an amazingly written encompassed view of MAKO Design + Invent!
If you have a great new invention idea and you’d like to learn more about this process, get in touch with MAKO today, and we can set you up on a call with our product strategist!
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!
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