By Rain Noe - Oct 26, 2017

How to Mock Up a Compound-Curved Bluetooth Speaker Using Foamcore

Eric Strebel is back with more modelmaking tips and tricks

Industrial designer Eric Strebel has already shown us some great techniques for building foamcore models, but this set of tricks takes the cake. Here he builds a model of a Bluetooth speaker, the design of which calls for both conical surfaces and compound curves, and reveals some clever techniques that

By Fictiv Inc. - Sep 12, 2017

Heat Sink Design Guide

In a world of ever-increasing electronics, our lives are continuously impacted by devices that incorporate some sort of heat-generating circuitry. When it comes to electronics that dissipate power in the form of heat during normal operation, it is often necessary to manage this heat, to ensure the components don't exceed

By Fictiv Inc. - Sep 04, 2017

Intro to Button Design

Here we'll use button design as a showcase for excellence

You've worked for months to get your prototype functioning. It's time to take that ugly (but functional!) works-like prototype and create a real consumer product. Right now, you may be focused on the general shape, smoothing out the curves and accommodating the awkward PCB shape (darn those electrical engineers!), but

By Fictiv Inc. - Aug 28, 2017

Enclosure Design 101

While the power of a hardware product comes from its internal components, a product is typically recognized by its enclosure, the outer shell that encloses electronic products, making them appealing and user-friendly. In this post I'm going to walk you through the steps for designing a basic enclosure, using the