About Shiozaki Design
Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and business for over fifteen years, Shiozaki Design is a boutique industrial design consulting office that specializes in helping companies design products that stand out in a crowded marketplace and much more. Shiozaki Design is dedicated to creating usable, aesthetically pleasing products that successfully meet the goals, desires, and needs of your company and the people who use your product.
Steven Shiozaki
Steven Shiozaki: Problem Solver, Industrial Designer, and UX/UI Designer
Steven’s professional passion is making things better. He finds incredible satisfaction in finding answers and solutions to complex problems. It is gratifying to create innovative solutions for the challenges facing a client’s new product.
Steven believes, first and foremost, industrial design and UX are problem-solving professions. Colors, materials, shapes, and forms work harmoniously to resolve challenges. Many challenges confront a new product during its development stages. The key is matching the right answer to the right problem.
Your project is of the utmost importance to him. He has a keen sense of observation and a desire to go beyond what may seem like the obvious solution. He can see the big picture, coupled with his attention to detail and applying all his knowledge, skills, and experiences to solving your industrial design problems, which makes him unique.
How We Work
What is it like to work with Shiozaki Design?
In this section, we will tell you what you can expect. What some of our beliefs are. How we will approach a client’s project. Lastly, we are different from most other industrial design consulting offices.
What You Can Expect
When you work with us, we listen to your concerns.
Your project is of the utmost importance to us. We realize the considerable investment of time, resources, and funding it takes to develop, design, manufacture, and ship a new product. We do not take this responsibility lightly.
Shiozaki Design immerses ourselves in your project to understand the challenges facing your new product.
We engage with your team members to learn more about the customer, the environment the product will be used in, and who the competition is. The industrial design for your new product is tailored specifically and exclusively for your company.
We do not design in a vacuum.
The goal is to work together to create a successful product for your company and your customers. Working together, we use all our knowledge to design a better product and help guide the team on what features are truly desirable and beneficial to the customer. We bring insights and our extensive product development knowledge to provide industrial design solutions that are tangible and real.
The industrial design solution created for your new product goes beyond just style.
It is a well-thought-out design that creatively balances key elements like color, finish, form, materials, manufacturing, and features. All are aesthetically blended to create an optimum industrial design to advance the company branding message through its product to enlist a positive response from the customer.
LDS Laser production unit
Guiding Beliefs
What our work is based on.
Our passion is to make things better.
We firmly believe we can help make your product better. We constantly think of how we can make things better to provide the customer with a gratifying experience when using your product. A significant part of our job satisfaction is presenting you with a solution that goes beyond what you expected.
Industrial design, at its very essence and core, is about problem-solving.
The key is to understand what the problem is. Not just the surface problems but the deep-down core problems. This is achieved by digging deeper and asking more insightful questions. Shapes, forms, materials, finishes, and colors are only part of the equation interwoven to create an innovative industrial product design.
Products should improve your life - whether at work, home, or play.
Great products should add value to your life. They help you become more productive at work. They are transparent and work quietly and efficiently behind the scenes. A great product is a source of joy and satisfaction.
Insatiable curiosity about how things work.
We enjoy learning how things work, new strategies, and learning from other people’s experiences. We keep an open eye and mind to new ideas and experiences. You never know when one will provide a eureka movement in a project.
Our Approach
Each project is different, and each client has unique needs, constraints, and requirements, so our approach is flexible.
Even though most projects follow our industrial design development phases, each phase is modified and tailored to meet your project’s requirements and budget. Product development is a complex, tightrope task that involves balancing many elements. Working with us, you will find we share our knowledge willingly. We want your project to succeed not only for your company but for your customers and end-users as well.
In each project, there are problems, and then there are Real Problems.
The challenge is to peel back the layers of perceived problems and get down to the core of Real Problems. These core problems can be targeted with optimum industrial design solutions that hit the target in the bull's eye. We provide solutions that have an impact.
You and your team are part of the process.
We do not just come in with a design and say, “Here it is.” We climb the mountain together. We work closely with your team to create the optimal industrial design solution for your product.
Our approach is to deliver the best solution that exceeds your company’s, customers', and end-users expectations.
We believe that we are the customers' and end-users' advocate, as well as yours, during the project - creating a balance between all the project’s constraints.
We keep our word.
If we tell you we will do something, then we do it. We keep an open line of communication with you.
We are pleasant to work with.
The product development process is rarely a smooth ride, even with the best intentions. From our experience working in start-ups, corporations, and consulting offices, we have learned to keep our perspective, focus, and sense of humor.
Our Uniqueness
Why should you hire us?
What makes us different from other industrial designers? The product design lessons and wisdom obtained over 20 years of industrial design, product design, and project management experience in fast-paced start-up companies, the corporate world, and in the consulting field. Each experience adds insights that help to prevent your project from falling into one of the many design pitfalls that would compromise the success of your project during the industrial design phase. We see the big picture but the details as well.
Next Step
Now that you have a better idea about what to expect from us, our values, a glimpse of our approach, and what makes us unique, contact us at hello@shiozakidesign.com to start the conversation about your project.