Role Overview:
Frida is looking for a Senior Industrial Designer to join our Product Development team and lead a wide array of projects, developing ideas into the design of new products with an emphasis on the aesthetic and user interface aspects of the design and manufacturability of each concept. The Senior Industrial Designer will own the creation of sketches, renderings, CAD models, prototypes, and prints to support engineering and manufacturing efforts.
Core Responsibilities:
Pre-Design
- Gather and analyze information skillfully; researching markets, consumer trends, and products in the baby product industry; reporting insights through visualizations
- Perform research on appearance, function, serviceability, budget, production costs/methods, and market characteristics of the product to be designed
- Understand end-user requirements as a result of direct end-user research in which this position would actively participate
- Provide ongoing feedback and guidance to other team members as part of the peer collaboration process
- Collaborate cross-functionally to gather insights and inform product charter
Design & Development
- Define and communicate the vision for the product experience
- Design utilizing input from the customer insights and strategy teams, taking into consideration manufacturing capabilities and limitations
- Incorporate and evolve the Frida design language across platforms of products designed
- Responsible for integrating aesthetic, ergonomic, and anthropometric requirements within the design of user-friendly products that attract consumers
- Maintain an organized design database
- Create manufacturing friendly CAD and mechanical drawings for project development and production understanding production constraints and materials
- Work within budgets and tight deadlines
- Support manufacturing and production processes as required
- Work directly with our quality manager to ensure that accuracy and quality standards are met
- Coordinate, run, and synthesize exploratory user research and product testing (including competitive samples and prototypes) within appropriate design phases
Design Aids
- Create sketches and illustrations of potential products
- Create 3D renderings for internal design reviews, and to incorporate for presentation to clients
- Develop rough functional prototypes and simple visual prototypes, storyboards, and visual representations as necessary
- Collaborate cross-functionally to produce high-fidelity functional and visual prototypes with outside vendors
Documentation
- Create and maintain product specifications
- Create and modify CAD drawings, parts, and assemblies to support the development of products
- Provide input on the development of manufacturing protocols
- Support formal claims documentation by recording expert interviews, maintaining clean file management, and documenting design decisions
Qualifications & Skills:
- Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design or related field
- 7+ years of experience designing/developing consumer products; experience in product development for baby and women’s health categories preferred
- Great concept sketching and ideation skills including hand and digital sketching for form and function exploration
- Experience in all aspects of new product creation: market research/analysis, and product design including sketching, prototyping and 3D modeling
- In-depth knowledge of user interface and ergonomics
- Good understanding of materials’ properties and functions, as well as manufacturing, safety, and compliance
- Ability to work on several projects in parallel and work with very challenging deadlines; have a pragmatic and hands-on mentality, initiating short term actions to achieve long term objectives
- Candidates must possess excellent listening, verbal, and written communication skills
- Knowledge and experience in prototyping
- Entrepreneurial mindset and able to work independently with a creative mindset and with results-focus in a fast-paced environment within a multi-disciplined team environment
- Self-starter who can prioritize, organize and manage multiple projects simultaneously and drive them to completion effectively with great attention to detail and quality
- Creative thinker who can come up with innovative and effective ways to operationally support fast-paced growth
- Strong strategic thinking skills, as well as robust communication skills
- Committed to learning and expanding one’s own professional and technical knowledge
- Must be organized, detail oriented and self-motivated
- Proficient Knowledge of SolidWorks (solids, surface, assemblies, mechanical) with knowledge of standard drafting practices and CAD development best practices
- Adobe Creative Suite and Keyshot proficiency, preferred