the concentric method
Developed through years of professional practice, the Concentric Method has client collaboration at its core. Each phase of the design process will move you one step closer to a deeper understanding of your users and your product. The Concentric method provides opportunities for you to refine your design and steer the outcome towards a greater vision. These five steps will help you transform the kernel of an idea or business into a visual or physical prototype ready to manufacture or pitch to investors.
The design process begins by collecting as much information about your product’s market segment, customers, and competitors in order to discover key areas of opportunity which are ripe for development.
This phase involves a lot of research, brainstorming, and of course lots of sticky notes! Ideas at this phase can be quick, rough thumbnail drawings that get across the concept and spark further discussion.
The concept phase explores how the product might look visually and begins to define the parameters of your product’s form and function.
The ideas in this phase expressed through line drawings and minimal shading to help communicate the form.
The create phase analyzes the physical interaction of the ideas by creating an object that can be touched or held.
By creating low fidelity volumetric mock-ups, we are able to quickly analyze the ergonomics, comfort and function of each concept. We use that knowledge to improve upon the design through a process of iterations.
The condense phase takes the best ideas and narrows them down to the most potent and successful of those developed in the previous stages.
In this phase styling becomes more important, giving us an opportunity to think about how your brand’s identity can be expressed through form.
The ideas in this phase are expressed through detailed drawings and 3d renderings. These visualizations help us understand how the product might look when completed before investing the time in full-scale engineering.
The construct phase takes the strongest concept which was identified through the previous phases and begins development of a working prototype.
The look of the product has been defined, and the problem solving shifts from conceptual to mechanical.
This phase involves a lot of collaboration with field matter experts in engineering and fabrication as we begin to understand the real world constraints of producing your product at scale.
