Industrial Design Services

What are Industrial Design Services?

Industrial design is the integral aspect of the product design process where we help ensure the product design looks, feels, and weighs precisely the way you envisioned. It’s one of two important elements of the product design process. Industrial design focuses on aesthetics – how beautiful and eye-catching the product is. The second part of the product design process is engineering. Mechanical engineering services and electrical engineering services are especially important for more complex products when it comes to manufacturability. Because a well-designed and engineered product helps ensure that every unit off the production line is impeccable, free of defects, and most importantly, provides an intuitive, compelling, and easy-to-use end-user experience.

1. PRODUCT RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

MECHANICS / ELECTRONICS / MATERIALS / MARKET

Starting with the Product Design Document mentioned above, we research and compare existing vs. new technologies to identify the optimal components for your product efficiently. With every selection, we carefully consider costs, supply chains, manufacturability, and performance. In addition, we’ll work closely with you to define your ideal target users and discover opportunities to capitalize on gaps in the existing market landscape based on your product vision.

2. ROUGH PRODUCT SKETCHES

EXPLORE / IDEATE / CONCEPTUALIZE

An iterative and creative design process with the objective of visually communicating each of the inventor’s product features inside their overall visual design of the product as a whole. Together with our design and engineering teams, you and MAKO will evaluate these individual parts and the overall design theme to ensure the user experience, functionality, and aesthetics are aligned with your product vision and business objectives. This sketch phase, although rough, is a very powerful way of bringing together a number of highly intelligent minds to find the best draft solution for your product.

3. REFINED INVENTION SKETCH

EVALUATE / CONSOLIDATE

Based on the rough sketches and ideation prior, the refined product sketch phase puts together all of the pieces and the overall design language into one product sketch. This allows our designers, engineering team, and the inventor time to deeply reflect on the product as a whole and make any final edits or adjustments before going into the next CAD Design phase. Since edits are relatively quick in the sketching phase, it’s best to use these phases to make any adjustments before getting into the heavy lifting work of subsequent CAD design, engineering, and prototyping phases.

4. 3D CONCEPT CAD DESIGN

CAD / RENDERINGS

The CAD design phase is taking the refined sketch from above and then using state-of-the-art 3D CAD software to build the initial conceptual CAD design of your product. Even though this is just conceptual at this point, at MAKO, we start the building of these models with full manufacturing-grade top-of-the-line software such as Solidworks Premier or Fusion360. This requires more technical expertise; however, it makes the design and engineering process far smoother, and far easier to jump into product manufacturing (and creates far more product value in the design along the way). Also, we’ve curated a library of components and experience from over 1,000 product designs, all developed in-house, so we’re extremely efficient and effective at 3D CAD Design as it is the key part of the product design services Process.

5. PROTOTYPING

BUILD / MEASURE / LEARN

The purpose of the CAD is to confirm that the product design is feasible and functional from a virtual perspective. The product prototyping phase gives you the opportunity to hold and use a tangible product to learn how the product looks and functions in the real world. Prototyping also gives you the opportunity to refine and perfect the final design to minimize costs and risks before going to full production. Whether it’s iterative, parallel, rapid prototyping, or our very own Smart MVP process, our prototyping processes are designed to help ensure you’re ready for user testing, investment pitches, crowdfunding, and everything in between.

A tailored experience starts with a MAKO team built around your project. We don’t just pair you with any industrial designer on our team. We introduce you to designers who are right for your project based on their expertise in specific industries. And of course, you’ll have the opportunity to chat and get to know them well ahead of time. Just like how every invention and inventor is unique, we’re unique like that too.

Your vision is what guides our team at MAKO from beginning to end. Every decision is collaborative and we won’t make any changes or updates to the design unless you give us the green light first. That means if you’d like to spend more time on sketches, we can do that. If you’d like to spend more time on the 3D CAD, we can do that as well. Because at MAKO, we’ll never push you to rush your product to manufacturing – you are in charge.

OPTION 1:
CONTINUE DEVELOPMENT
TO MANUFACTURING

The way most new inventions become successful products is to get to manufacturing and selling products. Once product design is done, MAKO Design can complete the engineering, prototyping, and manufacturing of your invention for you. We are a one-stop-shop from sketch to production then to sales. Half of our products are physical inventions, the other half are electronics products. Either way, we’re a full-stack in-house development firm. Below is a full list of all steps to get your product to production and then get your product out to market buyers!

OPTION 2:
LICENSE YOUR PRODUCT
TO A BRAND

Some inventors just want to get their product designed to a point where they can then license their invention idea to an existing product brand. Either way you go, completing world-class product design is a critical first step. If looking to license directly after design, MAKO would then offer patent referrals to set you up with a patent attorney so you can protect your IP before pitching your idea to licensors. Keep in mind that the further you develop your product, the higher the probability of licensing, so you may want to have MAKO engineer and/or prototype your design before you start pitching to get a licensing deal.

OPTION 3:
RAISE INVESTMENT TO
CONTINUE DEVELOPMENT

Raising money is a very normal part of getting a hardware product off the ground, and with MAKO’s help, anyone can do it! In fact, half of MAKO’s clients don’t start with enough funds to complete development and manufacturing. First and foremost, before raising any money, even from friends and family, it is essential that you complete at least the product design portion yourself. Even then, the further you push into engineering and especially prototyping, the better you look to investors, the more money you can raise, and the less equity you will have to give away.

1. PRODUCT DESIGN

This includes industrial design. We are here on this page, and this is the first and most important step in the product development process. This is the foundation of all product development to come, so is critically important to have it done right.

2. ENGINEERING

Mechanical engineering and Electrical engineering (for those products with electronics) are the detailed work on the CAD to ensure that all components of the product design work cohesively, reliably, and predictably.

3. PROTOTYPING

Before the product reaches the market, it’s important to test the form and functionality with a prototype. Prototypes are also a great way to generate traction for marketing, pre-sales, crowdfunding, and financing initiatives.

4. PATENTING

We have preferred connections and pricing with a network of patent attorneys to help our clients with all things related to IP (Intellectual Property) protection. Our clients get quality patenting work, affordably through our network of US and Canadian patent attorneys.

5. MANUFACTURING

Once the prototyping and engineering are complete, tested, and refined, the product is ready to move to production. This may happen after preselling through crowdfunding, or before selling if you choose to sell direct to buyers once you have inventory in stock.

6. SELLING

MAKO Design has many connections to help our clients launch and sell products. There are three main options: Pre-selling through crowdfunding, bulk order sales directly to wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and/or direct to the end-customer.