Product Design

At BCG Digital Ventures in Sydney, and Fjord Toronto, I have helped designers, business minds, and technology experts to develop venture concepts that have gone on to launch successfully in market by some of Australia and Canada’s largest brands.

Due to confidentiality agreements I am unable to present client work, so I have aimed here to summarise my approach and show fragments of outputs.

Conversations are the richest source of insight and lead to unique moments of inspiration

I have guided teams through conducting research and testing for numerous product innovation projects. Applied ethnography helps discover where peoples’ potential is limited by a factor that can be modified, and surveys and qualitative interview methods help validate the potential of proposed solutions.

It’s energising to take a circulating idea, and find its first form as a rough sketch

Through collaborative synthesis, observations and insights are transformed into solutions. Rough sketches are refined into a coherent flow of interactions with the constructive input of stakeholders with different domain expertise.

A mix of objectivity and intuition is necessary to design something novel and widely functional

Innovation projects generally culminate in a prototype or proof of concept demonstrating the concept vision. Inviting and usable designs emerge when established interaction patterns, technological constraints or advantages, and human insights inform stylistic choices.

A simple brand can animate a new venture, expressing its value on an emotional wavelength

A brand can be a vehicle to communicate the vision of the new idea. Light-weight research and design exercises help inform decisions to bring an interim brand together quickly, usually with a name, symbol, colour scheme and type treatments as a starting point.

To effectively communicate the complex logic of a new venture, it must be told as a story

When pitching a new concept for investment, the problems solved and reasons to believe the risk is worth the reward, must be communicated as a coherent story. I work with presenters to design the storyline and create impactful visuals to punctuate the verbal presentation.