From LEGO to Quarterre: Nick Mannion’s Journey Through Product, Place, and Play

Chris Whyte (: 00:05

Hello and welcome to the last episode in this series of the Design Journeys podcast. I'm your host Chris Whyte and in this podcast series we explore the career journeys of design and engineering leaders from the world of physical product development. But before we dive into today's episode, just a quick announcement from me about the future of the podcast. I've recently been approached by the host of a French language podcast also called Design Journeys, which focuses on digital design for a French speaking audience.

While I believe there's enough distinction between our podcasts, the other host feels the name is causing confusion for his audience. after careful consideration, I've agreed to rename the Design Journeys podcast. And this will be the final episode under its current name. And I'll share more details about the rebrand soon. But for now, let's get back to the show. And it's a good one. In today's episode, I'm joined by Nick Mannion, co-founder of Quarterre Studio.

Nick's career has taken him for designing for Lego, where he worked on iconic projects like Bionicle and Legoland Attractions to co-founding a consultancy that collaborates with global brands like Polestar, Mercedes and IKEA. We talk about the evolution of Quarterre Studio, the role of play in the design process and how storytelling can create meaningful user-centered designs. If you're interested in learning how curiosity, creativity and collaboration drive great design,

This conversation is for you.

Chris Whyte (: 01:35

So Nick, welcome to the podcast.

Nick (: 01:37

Thank you for having us.a

Chris Whyte (: 01:39

Very welcome. So I'm going to do my best to introduce you. I've kind of gone through our past conversations, gone through, obviously your LinkedIn profile. So please do correct me if I get any of this wrong. But Nick, your career started with a degree in transport design from Coventry University, where you developed a strong foundation in industrial and product design. Early on, you worked as a designer at Lego, where you contributed to innovative projects and honed your creative approach. And in 2010,

you co-founded Quarterre Studio. And for nearly 15 years, you've been leading projects at Bridge Industrial and user-centered design. Through your work at Quarterre, you've collaborated with world-renowned brands like Nissan, Mercedes, Polestar, Lego, and IKEA, delivering designs that are both innovative and practical. And today, as the director of Quarterre, you continue to shape the studio's creative direction, combining your expertise in transport and product design with a focus on meeting user needs and driving meaningful innovation.

So again, thank you for joining me. I hope that did you justice. it's probably one of the first ones I've done for a while where I haven't tripped over my own words. So again, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. as we start with every episode really, it's kind of, let's rewind the clock, go back to beginning. Why design? What got you into design in the first place?

Nick (: 02:44

Thank you.

Well, I think I've always been interested in drawing and storytelling. So for me, it was just those two things, know, making up stories, trying to draw my stories, you know. And that seemed to be something that I kind of felt sort of good at at school, you know, and I was doing quite well with that. And I remember actually, you know,

getting into my GCSEs and going to a careers advisor every, or at a time of every school, had like a little room where they had sort of little booklets in there. And I remember speaking to the lady, looking for some guidance. And I mentioned about the things I liked doing and she sort of was struggling to find the fit for me, you know, for a job and maybe like working at printers where you have to handle sort of, you know, graphics and things like that.

But I had to sort of, guess, like with anyone, I had sort of many of these turning points in life. that first, those first ones happened in school, doing my GCSEs, sort of 15. We had a course called Design and Communication. I don't know if it's called that now, but I sort of, was like a sledgehammer hitting us, going in. And...

the first, I think the first week they gave us a brief and I didn't even know what a brief was, but they said, we want you to design some models with using a bag of liquorice all sorts. So I sort of bought a bag of liquorice all sorts and I sort of started sketching and come up with many ideas and then sort of visualized, I don't know, about six of them. And I was very much into

sort of, you know, getting things looking right, getting good perspective, you know, being able to, you know, understand the right color, capture things, you know, as they are, as you see them. So I took that along in presentation a week later, and I was quite, I was quite, quite sort of shocked by the reaction because I've managed to almost, almost like foreshadowing my work at Lego, I managed to take these elements and create many ideas. So I suddenly realized that I

I was good at something. And then they showed us in the same course, they showed us a video by Seymour Powell, which is a famous design company. And they were developing a Duracell torch. It's a famous sort of black and yellow torch. You can probably sort of Google it and had this little articulated head. And they showed you their development process.

Chris Whyte (: 05:31

Okay.

Nick (: 05:46

And it was they were basically drawing pictures and using markers and making phone models. So I suddenly had this connection that there was a career for us. So I think it was those two those two things that really sort of I wasn't very good with other subjects, but those two things really sort of started off started us off on a journey, I suppose, you know. And then.

Chris Whyte (: 05:59

That's awesome.

That's that... I was going to say that's really interesting. I remember when I was at school, design wasn't... It was a subject, but there was nothing inspirational like that. I think the most inspirational thing that I had at school was... It was to do with music, and we had a day where the music bus came into school, and we did a lesson in... I think it was A-level.

Nick (: 06:14

Sorry, sorry Chris.

Sorry.

Chris Whyte (: 06:39

music and we just got to play around with all the instruments and kind of the samples and stuff and we at the end of the day we were recording a song in groups and that was that was great that kind of really inspired me but nothing to do with engineering or design so yeah it's great to see.

Nick (: 06:56

Yeah, I think, you know, it was, you know, once you go out, leave school, I left school at sort of 16 and I kind of drifted a bit, got a job as a cycle courier in London, which was, in hindsight, was great because I learned to sort of navigate myself around, you know, and deal with people. But then my parents kind of guided us and said, you know, if you do your A levels, that gives you options. So that was a, that was a big thing for us, you know, to sort of, you know, try and

get a little bit further up the ladder. So I got my A levels in science and then it was while I was waiting for a friend, he was going to university, I was sitting in that careers room with all the university prospectuses and I noticed there was one for Coventry. And I remember I was into car magazines, you know, and every now and again you'd have these really cool futuristic models made by students from Coventry.

the Royal College of Art. So I sort of grabbed the prospectus and I looked at it and I realised that I could actually get on this course. I could actually sort of spend four years designing vehicles while I figured what I wanted to do with my career, you know. So it was just again, that was another turning point that the guy was saying, look, I'll give you a lift home if you come up to the to this room with me and wait for me while I get I look at university options. And it was just that.

Chris Whyte (: 08:11

Hehehe

Nick (: 08:25

sitting around waiting for him that I've found this prospectus and found this course again you know so there's lot I think life's got many of these hasn't it you know

Chris Whyte (: 08:36

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely It's interesting I've spoke to so many people on this podcast and you look at an outside the podcast as well that started their design journey with transportation design at Coventry, but then Not too many that's going to ended up designing cars. They often end up going into like creating their own consultancy Well, you've got that in common with with Asian Bariat factory design and

There's so many others. I'm pretty sure Chris Johnson did that as well. It seems to be quite a natural move, but you don't often see it the other way around, where industrial designers go from consumer goods into automotive. From my perspective, anyway, it's quite interesting.

Nick (: 09:17

Yeah, yeah, I think I don't like I was I never really knew what I wanted to do, you know, and and and I, you know, some people I've met have really been focused, certainly some of the car designers, you know, that I've worked with. They really always dreamed, you know, and sketched and now they're sort of working in some of the big studios leading the teams there, you know. But for me, I was really into, again, the storytelling.

the movies, I loved movies and I noticed this guy kept coming up, his name's Sid Mead, kept coming up in some of my favourite movies and he did the transportation design at Art Centre in the US and I found like a book, think it was late 80s, early 90s, I found a book on the making of the movie Aliens and it had sketches of his

Chris Whyte (: 10:01

Okay.

Nick (: 10:15

designs for like vehicles and I thought if I do the vehicle design course then maybe I'll get to you know do sort of more these sort of fantasy vehicles so that was that I think that was more my thing and and going to Coventry which was which was great you know I realized that that everyone was different you know you had the real guys that wanted to be car designers but then you had people that

were like myself, who were kind of happy to just try anything product design. It was transportation, so it could be bikes, could be buses, it could be trains. And that was really unexpected to sort of suddenly find that one felt I was very intimidated. Everyone seemed really good and really experienced, you know, and but then I realized that

They're all, everyone's really there to learn and learn from each other. The teachers were there really as sort of people to guide you, but you really learn from your sort of peers, you know, on the course. And we were quite fortunate, you you had to have a good social year as well. So we all got on really well and we went out. Again, I think another important thing in life to sort of have a balance, you know, of the working hard, but also being able to sort of socialise and...

yourself.

Chris Whyte (: 11:41

Absolutely, especially in those those formative years And it doesn't necessarily need to just be going down the student union on student night it's it's going out the clubs and and finding out kind of finding new hobbies and things like that, isn't it? So, That's that's great. So, I just want to go back to the licorice all sorts and because you got me thinking about strange briefs that I've heard about over the years and

Nick (: 11:47

Thank

Mmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 12:08

Maybe we can talk around that for a little while. aside from the Liquish all sorts, have there been any other kind of standout, kind of odd briefs that you've had over the years?

Nick (: 12:18

Well, after sort of graduating and I did a work placement at Lego, they had this sort of super secret sort of innovation lab up in the North of England. that sort of got me sort of access into the sort of the Lego design process. And then when I graduated, I carrot continued that while my colleagues went off to design real cars.

I went off to design the toy cars, know, and Lego is actually the biggest car tire producer in the world. So, so, how were we at? Maybe everyone knows that. But that was, and so the, and so the briefs that we would get because we were working at the front end and there was not many international people in, in, in Denmark in the, in the studio there at the time, were really

Chris Whyte (: 12:51

one of those pub quiz questions isn't it?

Nick (: 13:12

sort of challenging, was really about what is the future of play? What's the future of who are the sort of cool kids and what products can we design that the cool kids would have and use and would create sort of an aspiration, you know? And this was, I wouldn't say, this was just ongoing, you know, and anyone that's worked in a...

front end of any innovation team, you know, realizes how hard this is, you know, because on the one hand we had, we had, and I worked with some great sort of other sort of designers as well. We had some real groundbreaking sort of innovation happening. And there was, and there was lots of it. We were able to sort of, you know, do a lot of the research, go out and build prototypes and test things.

But the brand almost was quite constrained. It could only accept certain things that aligned with the brand, you know, and aligned with its goals. And we used to joke that really the real sort of maybe the real direction for them is to set up Lego to set up a sort of a sub brand or something separate to take this sort of innovation funnel almost, you know.

So I think this was, that was, yeah, I think it was like the briefs would always be this very much, it was like something right in the future that we had to try and get to. And it really pushed us and it helped us certainly working a lot with Lego helped us really understand the value of play and also the process of play as well. when you're brainstorming or you're researching,

to try and make it a sort of playful sort of, yeah, to bring that into the process and to enjoy yourself. You work hard, but you've got to have fun. This is part of your life. We choose design really, because it's also something that we're very passionate about.

Chris Whyte (: 15:26

Absolutely, that's great and Lego am I right thinking that was your first kind of step into the the real world of design post-graduating Yeah

Nick (: 15:34

Yes, yes. So one of the things that I really struggled with, certainly at university, was there's two things. In fact, was procrastination and being decisive about sort of design and also time management. And this was something that working, doing my work placement, I was able to really sort of get a handle on that. That was something I could, I worked really hard, but at the end I would always fa-

like fall at the presentation point and I realized that I was not working smarter, you know. so I learned to sort of learn to use others to sort of make decisions for me, you know, like get things out and show people and make and vote on things and then take that and really sort of understand about the, the double diamond approach, you know. so

So that was really useful and I think got a really working with the teams, the in-house teams, really helped sort of hone that part and get your sort of design skills along with learning 3D, translating a drawing into a 3D model. That was another thing as well. I noticed that a lot of the engineers that I'd give my sketches to,

would give me back a 3D model that didn't look like the sketch. So then I sort of learned to be able to learn the 3D tools to be able to take the design. And that was another, I think, key learning thing was to be able to translate, go from 2D to 3D. And yeah, and that was great because you're dealing, you're not dealing with very big things, you're dealing with small elements.

And we were really part of a team that bought a lot of the, tried to modernize Lego, you know, from the sort of the, the sort of mid, mid nineties to try and, you know, certainly the vehicles to try and bring in more of a sort of surface sort of language, to really, you know, make, make the product very cool, you know, and, fly off the shelves. So, so yeah. And, and part of, and, and,

Chris Whyte (: 17:49

Awesome.

Nick (: 17:52

I'm just going to go on from that. of the real success was as part of an early team working on Bionicle, which was like little action figure. And this was really new. And the genesis of this come from the secret studio in North of England. And they this sort of these play dimensions. And one of them was this sort of this small figure, portable figure.

Chris Whyte (: 18:02

Okay, yeah.

Nick (: 18:19

And I was really fortunate to sort of, you know, be a part of the team designing this sort of product and having a really success, big success, you know, working on a, working on one of the most successful products for Lego at the time. and got to flow.

Chris Whyte (: 18:33

I remember them. Yeah, I remember seeing the advertising for those and being gutted that I was felt a little bit too old for it because I think it was would have been when I was 15 16 when when that came out and wish I'd that when I was a bit younger. I was far too self conscious to ask my mom and dad for Lego when I was in my late teens.

Nick (: 18:53

Yeah.

We were actually, because like with anything, were positioning it so it was someone of 15 would go, actually, I wouldn't mind these products because we wanted to put, because if the 15 year old has got it, then the seven year old wants it. And it was always this idea of making it desirable and affordable as well, they're very much.

Chris Whyte (: 19:09

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nick (: 19:27

very sort of clear price point to hit.

Chris Whyte (: 19:31

Maybe I was struggling from the decisiveness that you mentioned there and not deciding to put it on the Christmas list.

Nick (: 19:36

Yeah, yeah, I think

Yeah, I think they, like with any good product, know, they give you a range of things, don't they? You know, and there's something to suit. this was another learning for us was stories. And I mentioned this at the start, you know, they bought a story writer on, because we would be designing products and there would be some sort of context to it. But it was only when they bought this story writer on our team that they actually helped us sort of steer the sort of product direction.

Chris Whyte (: 19:45

Yeah.

Nick (: 20:09

and also opened out the thinking around what this product is, the context of the product, what additional products could be in the sort of offering. And I think that was a real, again, another turning point of the importance of story with design, you know? And that sort of, was almost like going back to the movies, you know, it was world building kind of, but for boys, you know, which was great.

Chris Whyte (: 20:29

Absolutely.

Well, it's going back to the why, isn't it? kind of Lego's got a very good why overall as a brand because it's play. But then having like a sub why, if you like, for each kind of category and that story, guess, makes it a lot easier as a designer to say, this fits in with the narrative, this fits in with the story. And for the consumer, it's like, that makes sense because that's part of that kind of ecosystem.

Nick (: 20:41

Hmm.

Chris Whyte (: 21:03

I want that to add to my story at home. So yeah, it's really clever.

Nick (: 21:08

Yeah, and I didn't, I don't think I thought about it like that, about the why, because, that was definitely there, but maybe it wasn't formalized in that way. It was a lot about the values, you know, so think Lego is one of the strongest brands in the world, you know, and, at the time it was a, it was not doing so well, you know, that sort of, that sort of stretched themselves and they'd entered into doing TV shows and things that

You know, and it really sort of stretched the brand a bit. So the idea of getting a big win was really, you know, was really sort of, yeah, we, felt very responsible of creating that big sort of million dollar product line, you know, and, like I said, you know, we, it was, it was a great, it was a great time as well, because there's a lot of exploration. I got to

Being very passionate about sort of this design and story I got to work on theme park the Legoland theme parks as well designing rides and I think it was another turning point was a trip to Euro Disney so in Paris that just opened so Going and walking around there and seeing what design is like in a sort of spatial context, you know And what the emotional sort of connection you can have

Chris Whyte (: 22:15

awesome.

Nick (: 22:36

And Disney are obviously the world leaders with this. So I sort of returned and did a final project to design the theme park ride in my final project at university, you know, and being able to then find myself living in California a few years later, designing theme park rides for Lego land and really sort of looking at the whole sort of experience, you know, from the product.

you know, the small elements that we were designing, the actual product, the portfolio of products, but then, you know, bringing that to life, you know, in a theme park, I think it was a really, it was a real exciting time. And I was always trying to push myself to explore the different opportunities, you know, within a brand. And I think if you're in a big company, you know, if you can do that, if you can sort of go and

knock on some doors and pester some people and work hard, obviously, it's all sort of, the work ethic is gotta be there. But that really opened a lot of doors for us, within the brand and traveling. I went to live in Tokyo. That was another sort of area that they wanted to Asia, and all the exciting things around sort of technology and fashion.

I'm trying to bring that into a product and, and, and, you know, we looked at sort of the different markets, you know, and eventually I sort of got to travel and live in Sydney, Australia. And that was, there was a, there was a really interesting thing there around being in a more of an outdoor, you know, sort of lifestyle, opposed to sort of Northern European perspective. and actually looking at.

Chris Whyte (: 24:13

Okay.

Nick (: 24:27

you know, design, product design, but also I was working a lot with Lego still out there and trying to sort of look at where that sort of those touch points could be. You how could you bring play outdoors? What are the types of ways to keep the values of Lego but bring play outdoors? And yeah, was really, again, life is all about experience, isn't it? So.

Chris Whyte (: 24:54

Absolutely absolutely that's that's amazing so you've you've You've been England North of England Coventry California Tokyo Sydney I was in London now aren't you so and anywhere else along the way that you've been as well

Nick (: 25:08

Just really in Europe, traveled in Europe again. really, I think again, another turning point was a holiday to Mexico. I was never interested at school in history, but as soon as I left school and started working, I've been really passionate about history and myth stories.

and archeology and all those things, and again, of understanding how they sort of connect and bringing that into product design and storytelling as well. I think visiting Mexico and visiting some of the old ancient sort of pyramids and the sites and being very inspired by their architecture and their society, I think, yeah, it's sort of...

It's things that sort of, yeah, I guess you have these things, don't you? These inspirations and being immersed in it, you know, I think, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 26:09

Absolutely,

I'm very much the same. I absolutely love traveling and it's one of the reasons why I set Kodo up is so that I can legitimately travel more for business and see the world. I found history at school quite boring, because it was very kind of British kind of centric. So it's about the World Wars, which obviously is very interesting, but it's about the World Wars and the Tudors. That's kind of all I remember from

Nick (: 26:27

That's it.

Chris Whyte (: 26:39

history and maybe the Crimea war as well but maybe I'm getting mixed up with the poetry from it but it's like when I've come out of school and I've kind of go and explore the world and you see all these fantastic kind of architecture and history and in different parts of the world and how vibrant and diverse it is and how awful it is in some respects but also how interesting.

Nick (: 26:40

Same.

Chris Whyte (: 27:04

the narratives of history are depending on where you are in the world and who's telling the story. I find that fascinating.

Nick (: 27:12

Yeah. We knew, I think the first time we met, you talked about, you know, your business is about people, isn't it? You know, and I think this is like being in other societies and, and, you know, observing and speaking to people, you know, it's, it is like an endless fascination, isn't it? You know, and obviously then you build into that, the history of these societies and how things are shaped and changed. It's, yeah, it's, it's quite.

It's great to sort of to do that to dip your toe in or to when you're in a different country to go to visit one of their museums, you know, and look at look at that, that that context, you know, there's a great we're just talking about Austin. don't know if you went to the Museum of Texas there. Did you manage to get there?

Chris Whyte (: 27:49

yeah.

No, I didn't get a chance to see that. I imagine it's, yeah, I regret it now, but I imagine it's great.

Nick (: 28:05

Yeah, just because of the oil and what it did for America, know, and all the sort of obviously challenges with colonization and yeah, was just, and it was huge. It was really, really big this place, you know. Yeah, but so I think that, you know, and listening to your other great sort of talks, you know, that you've been having and

I've really sort of enjoyed your, you know, listening to these and hearing people's stories, you know, and how they, their journey. It's a, it's a people story, you know, their journey and they're obviously we're all linked with design, aren't we? But,

Chris Whyte (: 28:49

That's it, yeah. And I think that's why I've been in my career as long as I have, is I'm fascinated by people and their stories because everyone's got a different view and a different kind of path that they've taken, even though there's a lot that binds us all together. There's still little stories to uncover. that's fantastic. So we move on then. Obviously, you say that as we're preparing for this, Nick, that your LinkedIn isn't a true kind of...

Nick (: 29:00

Mm.

Chris Whyte (: 29:16

story or kind of it's not it's not complete is it so how long were you at lego for

Chris Whyte (: 29:26

Hey there, it's Chris jumping in for a quick moment. At the heart of this podcast are the design journeys our guests share, where they've been, where they're headed, and the relationships and communities that shape their incredible achievements. As we near the end of this series, I'm excited to share what's next for the Design Journeys podcast.

We're building a vibrant community centered on physical product development. Think regular online huddles, quarterly meetups in the UK, and even an annual event in the US. We're also planning hands-on workshops

both in makerspaces and online. And that's just the beginning. If you'd like to stay in the loop, head over to teamkodu.com forward slash events and register your details there. We'd love to see you. Now back to the episode.

Nick (: 30:08

So we on and off, it's about 25 years, you know, from starting until sort of recently sort of more coming off of the, worked with, actually finally full circle, actually, they decided to develop this experience in Denmark called Lego house, which was like a science museum or a brand house for the brick. And it was meant to be very different to Lego land.

So luckily we've been working with the design director and he brought us in and that was really great to sort of, again, bring all of these sort of different experiences around the values of the brand, but then how can you translate that in a very sort of core sort of learning through play sort of approach.

What's that mean? What's the theming? What's the activities? You know, what's the, what's the way finding, you know, and, then we started to work a lot on interaction design. And that was really great because one of the big challenges that, that, there's a lot of brands go through, certainly the toy brands is this sort of physical digital kind of seamless experience, you know, and, and how can one sort of.

benefit the other. And this was always been the sort of holy grail, you know, from work from our years at Lego. And we managed to work with the team there to work on this. It's like a fish tank, which is something you build like a Lego, almost like a 2D fish, and you scan it. And it appears in this aquarium. Your model actually comes to life. You've had some eyes.

Chris Whyte (: 32:04

cool.

Nick (: 32:05

So that is, you know, getting that, it's almost like magic, you know, getting a, is a cool digital experience that is creative and fun, you know, playful. That was always the thing that really exciting, you know, and being able to sort of work on this, in this Lego house and design things that could deliver that sort of experience, I think was really, yeah, was great.

And eventually we sort of started doing more sort of spatial design, interaction design. And then recently we worked on a museum project in America where they, was, was in collaboration with Lego. They wanted to sort of bring learning through play to their museum. It was an art gallery in New York, in Buffalo, and they were transforming this space and

They really wanted to make it an inclusive space. They were conscious of the sort of the, you know, the art museum demographic and they wanted to open that up and because, you know, art really, you know, is so open and allow to think in different ways and express yourself. And they really wanted to bring in those people that might not go to an art gallery or be off. So they realized that play is a great enabler to do that.

and they had this, I think it was a library space or they had a sort of quite an empty space in the center of their gallery. And they engaged Coulter to sort of, you know, design this space with our, obviously with our play experience. And that really was kind of, it was a great sort of turning point to sort of bring in all the things that we've sort of learned for the years and the.

And the process, the design process as well, you know, using the online, the the Miro, the whiteboard, online whiteboards to really create that sort of journey together with the teams and to be able to sort of, you know, get everybody sort of to feel good about what they're creating and, you know, make it very democratic.

So yeah, so I think that these sorts of things are really where we've sort of transitioned from our first start when we set up the business.

Chris Whyte (: 34:38

Awesome. yeah, let's talk about Quarterre then. So that's been going for just shy of 15 years now, it looks like. and that, how did that come about then? What tells the story of how Quarterre came to being?

Nick (: 34:53

So what happened was we found ourselves, there was four of us all sort of living in London and we were all working for different things, different companies. we were all, yeah, yeah, one of the partners is Italian. we liked the idea of a court, know, like in a town you have a district or a quarter. liked, and it was play on words for that. So.

Chris Whyte (: 35:05

Is that where the name comes from, the Thor?

Yeah

Yeah. Yeah.

bro.

Nick (: 35:21

And we like that idea of like local identity or a district, you know. But we all found ourselves, we had our day jobs, but we would meet, I think, once every few weeks in the evening. And we would talk about designing products or where we felt, you know, we could improve sort of certain products. there was a big thing around the products for babies, you know, like, be it sort of the

the buggy or the carry cot or that sort of transition where you have to take a baby into the car. so we sort of, we had many things that we wanted to tackle just as a, I think it was like a bit of therapy as well, just getting together and having a few drinks and sketching and chatting, you know, and not really knowing where it's going to go. But we all suddenly found ourselves going, well, could we start something up? Could we start something small?

You know, some of us could sort of give more time to it at the start, but it could that enable us to, you know, formalize this, get a, get a small little sort of broom cupboard in, in, in, London to work from and just get going, get something started. So we did, we did, we did like a weekend away where we all got some post-it notes and we all just

come up with ideas. Like I said, there was this thing around baby products. But then we're all passionate cyclists. that crept into the discussion about designing products for bikes. And then through the voting process, we sort of said, well, no one's really dealing with bike storage, nice bike storage solutions.

And at the time we were all living in flats and space was a challenge for us to bring our bike into our flat. And we all, as designers, like nice, we appreciate nice furniture, like e-chairs or whatever. There's a bit of that sort of feeling of if we're gonna design a product, then we want it to be sort of a nice product.

And we were kind of riding a bit of a trend at the time where, you know, people were starting to invest a lot in their bikes. You know, there's some great sort of independent frame builders, creating sort of custom things for people. And, and we just, yeah, we sort of were able to, we couldn't decide on one. So we, we, we, we made three sort of prototypes and we took them to a design show.

And again, we were really bootstrapping this. And what happened was it created a bit of a buzz, what we were doing, because we had looked at three types of storage solutions. And what we didn't realize at the time is instead of just doing one new product, by doing three new products, we automatically seemed like a bit of an authority on this type of cat.

Chris Whyte (: 38:37

Huh.

Nick (: 38:38

which was not really, you know, it was a bit of a weird thing because if you was to put one of these products in a bike shop, it would look quite expensive. But if you was to put it in a furniture shop, would be, you know, it'd be sort of competitively priced. so we sat between two stalls almost, you know, with a product and a lot of, I think innovation sort of does a little bit because you're not quite sure because the market's not clearly defined.

Chris Whyte (: 38:52

Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick (: 39:07

But that sort of helped us get us going, you know, and suddenly we had a brand and we had to deal with, we got some marketing people on board and we had to deal with, you know, generating press. And yeah, and that was a great experience because suddenly without realizing it, we had formed something and that sort of really launched us, sort of launched our company.

Chris Whyte (: 39:34

So Quarterre started as a product business and then transitioned over the years into consultancy or were you doing consultancy on the side as well as the storage locker?

Nick (: 39:45

Yeah, we had both. we were having to fund the product side, get it up and running and sort in the supply chain out with the consultancy. And then we realized that it would be a full-time thing. One of us would have to just give up what we were doing or two of us would have to give up what we were doing and we'd have to really commit to that.

and we were still a bit on the fence because we still had some great relationships with some of these big companies. And we realized that, you know, maybe it could be better for us to grow the consultancy and then maybe return back to the products. And again, we'd had this sort of challenge with a product sort of category where it was almost a bit of a new type of category.

required a lot of educating customers or potential customers. So that was a bit of a challenge. So we decided to park the product business and focus more on the consultancy. But we'd learned a lot, you know, and I think the idea of developing a product, prototyping it, doing that very quick and being very agile, that really sort of held us in good sort of stead for

for our future as well and that sort of process. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 41:10

Yeah, so you didn't failed so much as you kind of decided to just take another path, really. You'd learned a lot of stuff and decided, you know, it's not the right time for this product or for us with this product. But then put your energies back into the consultancy.

Nick (: 41:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean, just just to sort of like finalize really on that it was one of the things that I don't think we realized how hard like the design part was almost the easy part, you know, and, and, and setting up the sort of production, it was very much a sort of focused on, you know, just local UK sort of manufacturing, was very, the processes were very sort of designed very simply, but obviously, wanted to create bit of elegance with the products.

Chris Whyte (: 41:38

Yeah.

Nick (: 41:54

And that was great to sort of build that up and to engage with the suppliers, you know, and talk with them and understand how they worked and being able to sort of, you know, position the pricing. But then, you know, it was, it was a lot of the sales, the marketing, you know, which because we're only a small team would have been on us to handle. And I think, you know, we, although we

put on different hats as a business owner you have to. It's also, yeah, you you realize that you've got to bring in lot of outside expertise to really drive this. Yeah, I think.

Chris Whyte (: 42:25

Yeah.

Yeah, you kind of become an accidental salesperson, an accidental marketer, don't you, when you're developing a product. product designers should really be great salespeople because you're storytelling for a living. It's just when you're selling kind of an idea or selling a product to kind of a distributor or retail or direct to customer, you're just selling through a different medium this time. but...

Nick (: 42:40

Thank

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 43:01

Yeah, is very different job, isn't it, to actually innovating and designing.

Nick (: 43:05

It is, yeah. And good salespeople are very good, know, and, you know, to find someone who's equal, good designer and salesperson, you know, can be a challenge, you know, like you said, it is something you have to take on board, but if you've ever been with good salespeople, you know, they're definitely worth, they're worth, it's definitely a skill, you know. And yeah, and I think we,

Chris Whyte (: 43:30

massive here

Nick (: 43:33

we were able to sort of the business early on so that we didn't set ourselves up to that if we stopped the production, the business would fail. We just did a transition. And like I mentioned earlier, I think the idea, and I think it's still there as any, maybe every designer has their product inside them that they wanna.

they want to bring to market, you know, and I think this is still there with us to bring a product to market, you know, and we're just, I guess, for the right time and the right connections to happen. it's definitely still there, you know. And I think it's, I think even if you're, you know, you're on your own and you're freelancing, but you have that thing, it might be, I don't know, make a lamp or make something to store.

Chris Whyte (: 44:04

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nick (: 44:29

some pens, you know, there's something really, there's something really great about just going and making something. It's really, it's really important. think we've all certainly all these digital tools and being able to 3D print. I think there's nothing better than just getting hands on with materials and looking at the process. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 44:37

Yeah.

Give it a go, talk to people. think there's so many great ways into kind of product development these days with especially Kickstarter and investors and in the community as well. mean, back in lockdown during COVID, I was running these online networking events called the Design Huddle. That was...

a reaction from me in terms of kind of, well, the whole world's turned upside down and locked down. I need to stay kind of in the conversation because no one's recruiting right now. So I need to just rally everyone together. And we had these kind of town halls, huddles online. And that went really well. We had one of the sessions, we had a show and tell. And we had about 20 people on the call, different kind of

leaders from design, a few from consultancy, a few from in-house, it was really good. And I remember the one guy, I'd been talking to him before, he runs a small consultancy called Luma ID. So Mark, you're listening, hello. And he had a squash ball warmer that he'd prototyped and it was on his website and was one of those things, if you play squash, you need to warm the ball up, otherwise it doesn't kind of...

it's no good. So he developed this as an exercise of prototype squash ball warmer. I said, you should show the group that I said, bye, if you never kind of made that into a into a business and it's far too busy with consultancy, but he brought it along and talked about it. And on that call, there was a chap called Steve who had got friends at Dunlop and said they were talking on and I said, look, you guys link up afterwards. And they went and did some exploratory conversations and I

Nick (: 46:19

wow.

Chris Whyte (: 46:26

I haven't caught up with them recently, but I believe they went off and started looking into developing this as a actual product. But it's like just talk to people, you know, worst case scenario, someone's going to say that's a nice idea. But the best case, you know, you can bump into someone who happens to know someone that can make that idea a reality or at least give you the confidence to make it a reality. So.

Nick (: 46:48

Yeah, it's almost like I think that's great. That's a great sort of what you did there. It's a great sort of case study really to because, you as you sort of go on sort of with with your sort of your journey, you know, you realize that it's so important to connect with people, you know, and I think you've you've you've almost facilitated this and I've been listening to some of your your speakers and I've been

openly reaching out to them and just saying, that really resonated with me, that story. one of them, Stefan was at Coventry a few years above me, and we were chatting about that experience and who we know and things. And sometimes you just need almost like that permission to connect with people. And that sounds crazy. And we sort of find this even designing toys is people need

Chris Whyte (: 47:27

Yeah.

Nick (: 47:47

you know, it's very hard to get people to play. But if you make it, if you give them permission to play, then you realize that everybody loves to play, you know, it's just sort of a human need. And the same with what you're doing, you know, connecting. A lot of people really want to connect and, you know, and hear other stories, but also go, well, actually, maybe we could work together, you know, maybe we could, there could be something, or if I've got

If I've got a need for expertise, then I'll go to someone straight away, you know, who's in my network or someone you've introduced us to, because this is how you sort of, this is how you sort of move and grow, isn't it?

Chris Whyte (: 48:31

The power is in the community for sure. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done personally is run those networking events and start this podcast. And I'm really excited about the stuff I've got planned in going forward. I'm running the workshop at Makeiversity on Thursday to help founders with utilizing LinkedIn to get more connections and more opportunities for funding.

Nick (: 48:45

go.

Chris Whyte (: 48:59

and to help them hire basically because you know not everyone wants to pay thousands of pounds or dollars for a recruiter when you can do a lot of it yourself you know if I can help someone do that fantastic you know it's all about giving and value and making those connections because it benefits us all you know and occasionally I make money off the side of it off an interaction fantastic but it's the joy I get from kind of hearing that

Nick (: 49:06

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 49:25

someone I connected to someone else did a great thing. You know, that's priceless. As cheesy as that sounds, it's really rewarding.

Nick (: 49:29

Mm, yeah.

No, no, I think you're building up, you know, in a very recent time that we've got to know each other, I think you're building up a trust network as well. And I think trust is a really important word, you know, because, you know, we, you know, we're bombarded with things, aren't we? And, and, and you could easily connect with people, but to actually form a sort of ongoing relationship with them, a business relationship, you know, really certainly

Chris Whyte (: 49:40

Hehehehe

Nick (: 50:03

a business owner, trust is a key thing. It's a thing that will push you forward or pull you back if it's not there or if it goes wrong. So being able to meet somebody and see what they're doing and to go, really sort of trust in this. what things you're doing next or what you.

you know, what advice you can give that is, I think that's something that we should all be always on the lookout for is a trust network, you know.

Chris Whyte (: 50:37

Absolutely. it's, we'll bring it back to you in a moment. But I think it's all about, you know, for me, it's just, it's adding value and just being a bit of a nice, authentic person. And we can all do that. And we all will benefit. It's something I strongly believe in it guides everything that I do. And, know, the industry I'm in, it's kind of, it hasn't got the best reputation. So it's if

for my little bit that I do, if it helps bring up the reputation of the recruitment industry in some shape or form, then great. But I'm more interested in the people that I directly kind of benefit and help. going back to to Cortair and you then, so in terms of kind of what you're up to now or what you're kind of you're offering and the kind of people that might be listening to this thinking, how can that kind of

What should I reach out to Nick about? mean, is there anything kind of that you're particularly kind of focused on anything that you're particularly kind of, you know, these are the we solve these problems. We talked about spatial and experiences and play and kind of cycling and all that kind of stuff. But I guess elevator pitch time. Really, Nick, what should who should be reaching out and how can you help them?

Nick (: 51:49

It's true.

Well, yeah, think we sort of coined this term product place and play, you know, and that really is sort of all about who we are, you know, and why we do things, you know, we really wanna sort of utilize these sort of these principles to create sort of like emotion, sort of emotion user center led design and

Play is a really sort of is a powerful sort of characteristic of that. And that is not just designing a playful product. It's actually the methodology used when you're going on that journey, that development journey. It's how you sort of interact with people or your stakeholders, your sort of suppliers. And it's also about, you know, making sure that you're having

You're enjoying what you do, you know, because that shows not only to your customers, you know, but it comes out in the end product as well. So that really, and that, and we say product and we say place as well because we started with the product, but then we started to design the context of the product, the experience around that. it's sort of, everything sort of comes from that sort of core.

And we really try and offer something sort of unique and sort of bespoke as well, think. A lot of the products we've done with some of our automotive clients, the craftsmanship and the attention to detail.

certainly of some of the accessories and luggage that goes into some of these premium car brands products is really just at another level. And what we've learned is that idea of taking that emotional design, that 2D emotional design, which

by doing transport design, you build a lot of expertise on that form language and being able to translate that into a product or a physical space. So I think this is something that we really feel that we've honed our skills around this. And we have fun doing it as well.

Chris Whyte (: 54:24

Awesome. That's great. while this is when we promote this episode on LinkedIn and all the other stuff that we do, we'll share a link to Quarterre and obviously to your LinkedIn profile so people can reach out. We're going to wrap up very shortly, but I like to ask my guests when we have time, what books or podcasts are you kind of into at the moment that you'd like to share?

Nick (: 54:32

Okay, thank you.

So I haven't been listening to many design podcasts. have to, but yours is really the first one and it's got me hooked now, you know? like we mentioned previously, I'd never really paid much attention to history. So I'm really going back now and really enjoying some of these history podcasts. So there's one, the BBC, In Our Time, and they take great inventions or discoveries in history.

Chris Whyte (: 55:10

Okay, yeah.

Nick (: 55:15

And it's just endless amount of content to listen to, know, on my cycle to work. And another one is founders as well. again, hearing about sort of founders of businesses, you know, be it Apple or Walmart, you know, and it's really sort of, yeah.

It's great to hear that story as well and to know that, you know, it's not a straightforward story. It's not just success after success. There's a lot of, there's a lot of sort of downturn. There's a lot of failing, you know, and, and even Dyson, I think the story of Dyson and reading his book on, his development as well. You know, it's almost those, those early, those early years are the really compelling stories, you know, working in your, in your garden.

Chris Whyte (: 56:11

Yeah.

Nick (: 56:13

on something. And then more lighthearted, I listen to these guys, it's called The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of. They do a prop in Robelia podcast and they collect original props from movies from sort of 80s, sort of 70s, 80s, 90s movies and they're just really entertaining and yeah, and they also get some great speakers on. So yeah, so.

Chris Whyte (: 56:24

Okay.

cool.

Nick (: 56:42

Design wise, I need to get up my game a bit more with some of these podcasts, but I'm really enjoying the other side of things.

Chris Whyte (: 56:49

Awesome well, thank you for sharing that and There's a final kind of know is there anyone you would like to give a shout out to or any kind of? Where you would like to point people to in terms of kind of more information? I'll see we share the show the website and your LinkedIn, but anything else you'd like to share

Nick (: 57:08

Yeah, just a big thanks to all the people that I've worked with, you know, and obviously my partners, Clive, Danny and Jason at the moment, you know, and all the sort of designers that have worked with us and worked in our studio over the years. I think it's just, you know, we learn, always learn from everybody, you know, and again, you hear this a lot, but curiosity is really a powerful thing that we should all.

foster and use all the time and you never stop learning. I think that's really important and please reach out to me on LinkedIn and always happy to connect and chat. We've got a studio in near Farringdon in London. I met up with a few people for coffees.

And it's always good to hear people's stories, you know, so.

Chris Whyte (: 58:06

Love that.

Yeah, the amount of people that hide behind screens that you know to get out and see people. It's so powerful We'll chat after the show about kind of I'm in London the next few weeks as well So I try and grab a grab a coffee, but yeah, I love everything about that and there's the stay curious bit. It's something that I'm Particularly passionate about even in in my industry ask questions be curious. It's great

Nick (: 58:08

See you.

Yeah.

Yeah, that'd

Chris Whyte (: 58:33

I've got a shout out as well. We need to thank Tim Morton for putting us in touch. So, yeah, thank you very much, Tim. It's been great. yeah, Nick, it's been amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Nick (: 58:37

Yeah, thanks, Tim.

Thank you. Thanks for doing this Chris as well. think it's so important what you're doing and you can tell that you're really passionate and you're making all these connections and yeah, hopefully we'll catch up in person very soon.

Chris Whyte (: 59:01

We will do, brilliant!