Designing in the Wild

Industrial designers and inventors on turning messy real-world constraints into products that can be made and sold.

17 episodes · 13 hours · since 2022

Designing in the Wild is filed under design, product development and interviews. Its most recent episode published on 14 Oct 2026, so it is still actively publishing. Listeners have left 3 ratings on Apple Podcasts, averaging 4 out of 5.

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Where to begin with Designing in the Wild: full episodes about building physical products, award winners first.

1 Mar 2022 · 1h 22m
#010: Andre Brown - Principal Engineer on Amazon's Transportation Sustainability Team - Digital vs. Physical Prototyping, Creating Flat Hierarchies within Teams, Innovating Faster, Designing in Virtual Reality, Eggs and Vacuum Cleaners, Procedural Design.
Andre Brown, Principal Engineer at Amazon’s Transportation Sustainability team and former R&D lead at Dyson and Shark, discusses the strategic balance between physical prototyping and high-fidelity simulation in product development. He details how Amazon uses massive CFD simulations to optimize aerodynamic fairings for its fleet, while contrasting this with Dyson’s cardboard prototyping and Shark’s customer-centric testing for vacuum cleaners. Brown also highlights his work on open-source race cars, the use of Gravity Sketch for VR design, and biomimicry-inspired innovations like the egg-protected Dyson robot vacuum.
Prototyping & iteration Industrial & consumer product design
10 chapters
14 Oct 2026 · 55m
Designing for Joy: Finding Meaning in Industrial Design with Daniela Garcia | S3E04
Industrial designer Daniela Garcia, who revitalized the Boston IDSA chapter and works with companies like G appliances and Medea, explains her design philosophy centered on 'joy' and reducing user stress. She details her workflow, which combines low-fidelity cardboard prototyping to avoid 'CAD goggles' with AI tools like Vizcom and Figma for rapid visualization and stakeholder buy-in. Garcia also discusses her wellness initiative, Shanti, and how observing nature and birdwatching informs her CMF strategies and biomimicry approaches.
Industrial & consumer product design Prototyping & iteration
9 chapters
28 Sept 2023 · 1h 13m
#011 Season 2: Jason Belaire - IDSA Chair(2021-2022) | Belworld Creative, INC. Talks of living abroad, childhood abuse, empathy, social projects around the world, and sustainability
Jason Belaire, Chair of the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA) and founder of Belworld Creative, INC., discusses how his experiences living in Argentina and working in the outdoor industry shaped his sustainable design philosophy. He explains that designing for resource-constrained environments in places like Northern Argentina fostered a deeper empathy and creativity than standard first-world models allow. Belaire advocates for integrating emotional intelligence and servant leadership into product development to create more equitable and sustainable outcomes, arguing that the design profession must actively address its environmental impact.
Sustainability & circular products Industrial & consumer product design
10 chapters

Hear it in a few minutes

Single discussions from recent episodes, playing the show's own audio from where each begins.

CMF Strategy: Color Skews, Market Gaps, and Online Shopping
5 min · Designing in the Wild
From “Designing for Joy: Finding Meaning in Industrial Design with Daniela Garcia | S3E04” at 33:28
Nollman's Path to Industrial Design and RIT
4 min · Designing in the Wild
From “Industrial Design, AI & the Business of Design with Jordan Nollman | S3E02” at 3:18
Integrating Clients into the Research Process
5 min · Designing in the Wild
From “How to Do Better Design Research with Jill Bohaboy | S3E02” at 41:29

Latest episodes

7 Oct 2026 · 1h 01m
Industrial Design, AI & the Business of Design with Jordan Nollman | S3E02
Jordan Nollman, founder and CEO of Sprout, a Boston-based multidisciplinary design consultancy, discusses the evolution of industrial design from a solo practice to a 60-person studio offering strategy, branding, UX, and engineering. He details the business realities of running a consultancy, including the critical importance of retainers, the pitfalls of all-equity deals, and the strategic use of AI tools like VizCom to accelerate storyboarding and visualization without replacing core design thinking. Nollman emphasizes that while AI speeds up execution, the value lies in solving real-world problems, citing projects like a microplastics sensor and a solar-powered milk trolley that balance aesthetics, function, and sustainability.
Starting a product company Industrial & consumer product design
9 chapters
30 Sept 2026 · 58m
How to Do Better Design Research with Jill Bohaboy | S3E02
Jill Bohaboy, founder of Trek Solutions, joins Rob to discuss the craft of design research, emphasizing that meaningful insights come from observation and qualitative methods rather than just asking people what they want. They explore specific techniques such as 'build-it' sessions, shop-alongs, and breaking down products like diapers to understand compensating behaviors and latent needs. Bohaboy argues that researchers can conduct effective, low-budget studies by simply observing consumers in their natural environments and asking open-ended questions to avoid bias. The conversation highlights how these methods help uncover the 'why' behind user actions, turning research into a launch pad for innovation rather than a roadblock.
Validation & product-market fit Industrial & consumer product design
10 chapters
25 Sept 2026 · 3m
We're BACK! Industrial Design, Biomimicry & More: Designing in the Wild Season 3 (Trailer) | S3E01
Rob Irwin, host of Designing in the Wild, announces the return of the podcast for Season 3 with a new video format. He highlights his 23-year background as an industrial designer, citing past work on Amazon's smart shopping carts, net-zero tiny homes, and Huggies diapers. The season will feature diverse guests including biomimicry experts, software modelers, and manufacturing professionals.
Industrial & consumer product design Creator business
1 chapters
1 May 2024 · 26m
#012 Season 2: Robert Irwin - Senior Industrial Designer, Founder of LearnIndustrialDesign.com, Principal Sustainability Consultant at irwindesigned
Robert Irwin, Senior Industrial Designer and founder of LearnIndustrialDesign.com, discusses his two decades of experience in sustainable design, ranging from biomimetic lawn dart redesigns to net-zero homes with $12 annual utility bills. He critiques current Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) tools for focusing too narrowly on CO2, arguing that they ignore critical health impacts like polyester microfibers and biodiversity loss. Irwin challenges designers to treat environmental criteria as primary requirements alongside cost, form, and function, emphasizing that 80% of a product's environmental impact is determined before the design documentation phase.
Materials & manufacturing processes Industrial & consumer product design
1 chapters
21 Feb 2022 · 1h 01m
#009 - Unleashing Creativity Through User-Driven Storytelling - Sam Feller - Human-Centered Engineering, Team Management, Tracking Deliverables, Tactics for Problem Solving
Sam Feller, a product manager at Tulip Interfaces and former program manager at Amazon, discusses his transition from mechanical engineering to systems management. He explains how shifting teams from technical task lists to user-driven storytelling and deliverable-based tracking simplifies complex engineering problems, such as runtime conflicts, into simpler user interface solutions. Feller also details his approach to managing large hardware teams by focusing on binary deliverables rather than percentage completion, and shares his background with early hardware ventures like Awkward Engineer and solar kiosks.
Leadership, teams & culture Industrial & consumer product design
8 chapters
14 Feb 2022 · 58m
#008: Blood In The Water: Americas Assault on Innovation - Kip Doyle - Patent Process, Product Innovation, Defending Patents, Napkin Sketch to Manufacturing
Kip Doyle, inventor of the Card Shark credit card wallet skin and author of 'Blood In The Water', recounts her decade-long struggle to protect her intellectual property against major tech companies like Speck and OtterBox. She details the transition from a napkin sketch to utility and design patents, explaining how the America Invents Act (AIA) and Inter Partes Review (IPR) processes have made it nearly impossible for independent inventors to defend their rights. Doyle advises creators to document their ideas meticulously, hire local or student lawyers to manage costs, and join communities like USInventor.org for support.
Intellectual property Starting a product company
7 chapters
7 Feb 2022 · 1h 01m
#007: It's Time We Start Thinking Beyond the User - Dan Griner - Director of Design, Innovation, and Strategy at University of Colorado Denver
Dan Griner, Director of Design, Innovation, and Strategy at the University of Colorado Denver, discusses his journey from a high school dropout and pinstriper to a designer focused on social impact and meta-design. He details his work with OtterBox, where he helped develop an innovation method, and his current projects with the Common Sense Institute to map homelessness systems and create PPE through the nonprofit Make for COVID. Griner argues that designers must move beyond user-centric aesthetics to consider the entire lifecycle, supply chain ethics, and planetary impact, citing biomimicry resources like asknature.org and the importance of empathy in solving systemic issues.
Industrial & consumer product design Sustainability & circular products
7 chapters
2 Feb 2022 · 5m
#006: The Creators Revolution + Mid-Week Update - February 2, 2022
The host of Designing in the Wild reflects on his 15-year career as a lead designer for the Amazon Dash Card, describing his design lab as a 'war room' that was misunderstood by colleagues as merely an 'arts and crafts area.' He argues that industrial design bridges the gap between aesthetic appeal, which drives 'shelf velocity,' and technical manufacturing constraints, countering the historical undervaluation of creativity. The episode concludes with a preview of an upcoming interview with Dan Griner, director of industrial design at the University of Colorado Denver, and a mention of a previous conversation with VR designer Todd Heavenstreet.
Industrial & consumer product design Marketing & brand
1 chapters
31 Jan 2022 · 1h 37m
#005: Industrial Designer Turned Concept Artist, Todd Hebenstreit - Facebook Oculus Designer, VR aficionado, UI/UX Savant, Analog to Digital, Game Design, Era Specific Influence, and Process
Todd Hebenstreit, a former industrial designer at Dell and concept artist for Oculus and Naughty Dog, discusses his transition from physical product design to digital UI and concept art. He details his work designing the Oculus Store interface and VR environments, emphasizing the use of 3D underlays to accelerate the concepting process. Hebenstreit also shares insights on navigating high-pressure engineering cultures at Facebook and Amazon, the importance of rigorous hiring standards, and his evolving digital workflow using Photoshop and Wacom tablets.
Industrial & consumer product design AI & machine learning
7 chapters

Every episode

17 episodes with a summary and chapters, by year.

20264 episodes

20241 episodes

1 May#012 Season 2: Robert Irwin - Senior Industrial Designer, Founder of LearnIndustrialDesign.com, Principal Sustainability Consultant at irwindesigned26m

20231 episodes

28 Sept#011 Season 2: Jason Belaire - IDSA Chair(2021-2022)Belworld Creative, INC. Talks of living abroad, childhood abuse, empathy, social projects around the world, and sustainability1h 13m

202211 episodes

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