Expanding my experience
I joined Bose after leaving LUNAR. I was ready to learn more and make the transition from a consultancy to corporate environment. I was able to take several programs from concept to launch, both as an industrial designer and lead.
In addition to core ID work, I also participated in major vision exercises, front end research, and user needs finding exercises. During the course of that work, I was happy to be able to partner with IDEO, Fjord, as well as Mixer.
Myself and the design director at the reddot awards, 2017. I was lucky to be able to travel to represent the Bose team on this occassion.
The Bass Module 700 was part of the Lifestyle 650 system, both of which garnered reddot awards that year. The LS650 system also picked up a Good Design award.
Creative Lead | Speakers Category
I operated as a category leader for User Centered Design in the Speakers and Mobile audio category for 6 months, while internal roles were being redefined. I interfaced with business, supply, marketing, and operations experts. My role was to represent the design disciplines, and be an advocate for the end user. The category set roadmaps, prioritized programs, allocated marketing funds, and set quarterly goals and agenda.
Research Analysis and Application
Bose has a great user research team. I was able to interact with a UR expert on all major projects. We collaborated to determine the best way to answer the questions that ID needed in order to progress a concept. This also exposed me to a vast set of information that could be applied to the thinking behind the products.
Design Systems / Visual Brand Language
I was half of a 2 person ID team that was tasked with revisiting our pre-existing visual brand language. We worked to illustrate the value of the previous system and align with stakeholders on a new purpose for the updated document. It rapidly expanded to include UX designers, to collaborate and strengthen the document. We were also able to leverage marketing and business input.
We systematically disassembled the previous document and simplified the key elements. Our goal was to ensure that it was equally useful as an onboarding tool for new ID staff, and an actionable metric for success on all our following programs.
Below is a redacted snapshot of the working in progress board.
Market Positioning & Product Definition
During an initial phase of a program, requirements and target user group were not clearly defined. In order to support the early efforts, I re-imagined a DeWalt ruggedized audio product into 4 progressively less outdoor / rugged focused iterations. This was a quick hour of photoshop bashing to get the diagram built. I mapped this to our internal product line. This helped aid the program team’s decision-making process and clarified how the design of the product reinforces the key user value. Ultimately this led to a refined focus for the product definition.
Visualizing | Mentoring
While taking on additional Lead responsibilities, I was able to maintain proficiency in core design tools. Building impactful images helped generate excitement around a concept, and also often influenced the final marketing imagery that was used in campaigns and promotions.
I was one of the go-to designers in the studio for Keyshot training or questions. Lighting, material creation, composition or general “why is this thing all covered in speckles” types of support. I also helped out with efficient workflow suggestions to save time and effort.
Below are some of the assets that I generated. A few of them are tweaked in post with Photoshop.
