Hiring our first industrial designer

For the first eighteen months of Vive Tennis, the product looked like what it was: an engineering prototype. The chassis was 3D-printed PLA. The wheels were whatever the gearmotors came with. The "case" was four screws and a hope.

By late 2024 we knew we had to bring in a real industrial designer. Here's what we looked for, how we screened, and why the hire reshaped the production unit.

What we looked for

Three things, in order of importance:

1. CMF (colour, material, finish) instinct. Hardware that ships to consumers lives or dies on CMF. We needed someone who could look at a 446 C front cover and tell us why it should be matte, not satin, and what that does to the perceived weight of the product.

2. DFM (design for manufacturing) literacy. A beautiful render is worthless if no factory can produce it under $X per unit. We screened for portfolios that included shipped consumer products, not just concept pieces.

3. Sport-product taste. Tennis is a culture. We didn't want someone who'd design us another consumer-electronics black box. We wanted someone who understood the visual vocabulary of premium sport.

How we screened

We did three rounds:

• Portfolio review. 26 portfolios, 8 in serious contention. We weighted shipped product over concept work.
• Take-home brief. "Redesign the front cover of the current Vive in your style, keeping the existing internal mounts. Include a CMF call-out and a DFM note." 1 week. Most candidates produced one render. The shortlist produced a CMF callout sheet and a DFM note that flagged real issues.
• Onsite (or video) review with the engineering team. Sina and Javad asked questions about specific tradeoffs. Could you tell us the temperature range your finish handles? What's the demoulding angle on this surface? Real conversations, not vibes.

The hire and the impact

Ernesto joined late in the process, after 15 years at Nike and Home Depot. He completely reshaped the production unit. The front cover went from a flat panel to a sculpted shoulder. The wheel CMF moved from "tennis yellow" to Pantone 382 C. The grain pattern on the rear panel hides moulding marks that were visible on the v1 unit.

None of that affected the function. All of it affected the feeling. A consumer hardware product is a thing people put on a shelf when they're not using it. It has to deserve the shelf.

— Mitra