Design — Design & engineering

Quick read

Aesthetics were settled upstream — with the client, not for them.

On a consumer product, design is not a final-stage touch-up: it is decided upstream, before a single CAD part exists. To frame that decision, we build tailor-made tools — here, a design-preference questionnaire — that make you think through what you actually want: a style, priorities, a universe.

The collected orientations then move to the sketchbook — proportions, arc, base, control details — and finally crystallize into a photorealistic, AI-generated intent render: a shared reference image, understood by everyone, that will guide the CAD, the materials and the communication.

3 artefacts sequenced before CAD: questionnaire, sketches, intent render

Learn more — click a sub-step

01Framing the client's taste

It can be hard to describe the design you want — but you know very well how to choose. So we build tailor-made tools that structure the reflection: here, a questionnaire that sums up the decisions to be made and guides you through your aesthetic preferences.

The exercise forces trade-offs: you cannot want everything at once. The priorities that emerge — a discreet but assertive object with a sober, asymmetric style — become the product's aesthetic specification.

The framing questionnaire: four styles to choose from, five criteria rated 1 to 5.

02Sketches and formal language

We then move to the sketchbook: several sketches set the product's proportions and architecture, while visually translating the earlier choices and technical solutions. Here the choices concern mainly the stand and the base, the rest being constrained by aerodynamics.

The verdict? An asymmetric stand and a one-third hold on a pared-back base.

Five sketches to set proportions, architecture and details — from the overall profile to the dial.
The serrated propeller: the Research step's serrations become an identity motif.
The knurled dial: a physical, tactile control with an assumed retro feel.

03The intent render

The exploration finally crystallizes into a photorealistic AI-generated render: an iterative pass refines the aesthetic choices where needed, in order to settle on a guiding line for the rest of the design work.

This render becomes the project's geometric reference: it is what the CAD will have to rebuild part by part, and what the end-of-project Blender renders — and the product actually built — will be measured against.

The intent render: the target that CAD, materials and manufacturing must live up to.