A working practice for new product

Solberg Design is an industrial design and innovation consulting practice based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For twenty years we have turned executive ambition into objects people can hold: agricultural equipment, medical devices, bicycle components, dental tools, consumer robots, and the interfaces that run them. Two hundred and seventy-three products have gone from first sketch to production along the way.

We work with manufacturers, founders and internal product teams who have a decision in front of them that costs real money to get wrong — a new category, a platform replacement, a concept that has to survive contact with a factory. Engagements run from a six-week sprint that pressure-tests one idea to a full program covering brand strategy, visual identity, multiple design cycles and a complete specification package.

The practice is built and run by Kent Solberg, an industrial designer who has spent two decades between the boardroom and the production floor. That position is the whole point: we translate C-suite intent into geometry a toolmaker can cut, and we report what the factory says back to the people funding it, without softening either end. Clients have included Case IH and CNH Industrial, Pfizer, MIT Media Lab, SRAM, Answer Products, BioCut Systems and JW Speaker.

We do not sell slide decks. Every engagement produces buildable geometry, tested with users and costed for manufacture, and we bring in process only when it serves the build. If your problem turns out to be smaller than a full program, the invoice reflects that.