How to Design for Everything from Pizza Ovens to Gas Safety Devices with Hugo Martin

Chris Whyte (: 00:05

Hello and welcome to Why Design? The podcast where we explore the stories behind the founders and senior leaders shaping the world of physical product development. I'm Chris Whyte your host and founder of Kodu a recruitment company dedicated exclusively to physical product development. Over the past decade, I've had the privilege of interviewing remarkable people in this space and their incredible stories inspired me to create this podcast.

In each episode, we dive into the journeys, insights and lessons from founders and design leaders driving innovation in people and planet friendly hardware. So let's get started.

Chris Whyte (: 00:37

In today's episode, I'm joined by Hugo Martin, Director of Product Design at WMP Creative, where he's been leading a multi award-winning team for over 14 years. Hugo's journey is a fascinating one, stepping into a family-run business that at the time didn't even have a product design division. He took the reins, built it from scratch, turning it into one of WMP's most strategically important arms.

We get into the balance between intuition and process in product design, when to trust your guts and when a structured approach is necessary. Hugo shares insights from designing everything from life-saving gas safety devices, where rigorous process is crucial, to high-end pizza ovens where embracing the theater of cooking takes priority over over-engineering. We also talk about how consultancies can stay competitive in an evolving landscape. What AI means for industrial designers.

and the shift towards more holistic design services that go beyond just the product. So whether you're a designer, entrepreneur, or just fascinated by how great products come to life, this episode is packed with insights. So let's get on with it, shall we?

Chris Whyte (: 01:48

OK, Hugo, welcome to the podcast.

Hugo Martin (: 01:50

Thank you.

Chris Whyte (: 01:52

It's really good to have you. So I'm going to do my best as we were just discussing before we went live. Just to set the scene, give listeners a bit of an insight to you. So Hugo, are currently the director of product design over at WMP Creative, where you've been leading a multi award winning team for just over 14 years now. Your expertise covers industrial design, design strategy and concept generation.

eer back at the Alloy back in: 2007

Hugo Martin (: 02:29

Perfect.

Yeah, that's right.

Chris Whyte (: 02:50

Correct me if wrong, but at that time you didn't, or the business didn't have a product design department. It was more known for its photography and graphic design and digital services. So you came in fresh faced, bright bushy tailed, you know, three years at the alloy and here you go. It's a responsibility to set up a whole new division. And you've been doing that for the last 14 years or so. Picking up a bunch of awards along the way, industry recognition such as Red Dot Design Awards, IF Awards.

European Design Awards. yeah, so fantastic. So we'll dip into that shortly. But as we discuss when we're prepping for this, Hugo, really want to dive into your views on intuition versus process in product design, where the place is for that and where it's appropriate to go with your gut or go with a process, whether that's projects or business development when it comes to.

design consultancy. So yeah, really looking forward to diving into this and as we do every episode on this, we'll start at the beginning. Why design? What kind of got you interested in product design?

Hugo Martin (: 03:52

Thank you.

I think it's probably quite typical, I'm sure you hear a lot of the same people, you know at school definitely quite heavily dyslexic and probably a smattering of ADHD in there as well and kind of found it quite hard to concentrate on lots of subjects that didn't take my interest, things like chemistry and maths and so on, never really kind of

A, would focus well, but as soon as it was art and design, I got like a laser focus really kind of into it and it's really occupied my mind outside of school. did a lot of it myself, my own free time. So yeah, just kind of a real deep passion for it and real kind of, you know, love of the craft, actually physically making things initially. Went to really lucky to go to schools which had a good design, like set up.

It's not the case for a lot of schools, but I was extremely fortunate there and my school had a proper kind of like resistant materials course, great workshop, so really got to develop those skills through school.

Chris Whyte (: 05:05

Awesome. So yeah,

it was was there right from the beginning. wasn't, you know, yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 05:10

Yeah, I feel quite lucky. mean, a lot of people kind

of, you know, struggles know what they want to do when they're older, but I was always deadly clear that I'd and also because of my parents, my father having a business in the creative industries, it was kind of quite an open door to that as being a job. think for a lot of people, you know, whose parents are plumbers or accountants or whatever it is, it's kind of not something which is obvious. lot of people don't realize your products are developed and designed, whereas that was kind of always

Chris Whyte (: 05:37

Absolutely,

Hugo Martin (: 05:39

quite open to me, so yeah, extremely lucky really.

Chris Whyte (: 05:40

Yeah,

absolutely. So, and I guess at that time, the studio was more on the photography side, I'm guessing. Was that ever a consideration?

Hugo Martin (: 05:54

It started off in photography, as my father did that when he was in his 20s, but he was quite entrepreneurial, he kind of developed the company to fit the needs of his customers. So it started off in film and photography, but then that was being shown at events, so he started going to events, and at events they also needed a graphic design. So it kind of evolved over time, and digital became a bigger thing, so that was an element. So yeah, by the time that we added the product design,

Chris Whyte (: 06:13

Okay.

Hugo Martin (: 06:21

division, there was already a presence of being a multi-disciplinary agency. Product design fits very well into that because you can start right at the beginning, what are the insights, how do we make something better, create the product and then market it. So that's why it's been a very successful addition to the company.

Chris Whyte (: 06:41

Brilliant. So after graduating, you went and worked at the alloy. How was that as a foundation for you?

Hugo Martin (: 06:52

Really good, yeah. Really good team there, very talented people that I working with. And it's quite a jump, you going from university to real consultancy, working with real clients. Yeah, I think it was, I mean, they do great work. Tani, I'm still friends with, he still does, he runs it now. So yeah, I mean, as good of grounding as you could ever really get, think. Yeah, and I think it's, I think they're very good at kind of

Chris Whyte (: 07:18

See you.

Hugo Martin (: 07:21

I think what that showed me as opposed to university was the importance of getting a really strong narrative when selling ideas. At university you're doing your project and it's kind of its own closed thing, but thinking about the bigger picture, how you're to sell it into a client is obviously pretty critical in terms of being successful later.

Chris Whyte (: 07:40

Massively, yes, it's that missing link, isn't it, between kind of the academic studies and the reality of what's needed out in the real world. So you were there for three years and then made the move over to WMP. Were you ever kind of resisting that? Because I think a lot of people can resonate with that. I don't want to follow my father or I don't follow my mother in that path.

Hugo Martin (: 07:48

Yeah.

Yeah,

I know what mean. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, I always wanted to have my own company at some point and like have control of the kind of projects I did and, you know, who I worked with and the kind of clients we go after. So that was always an ambition. So the original idea was well set up a new product design company, but, but seeing that there could be this kind of bolt on just made a lot of sense. the point of view of, you're starting off, if it's a totally fresh company where there's

Chris Whyte (: 08:27

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 08:33

no accounts and no accountants to help with that side of it and stuff. It's a much bigger undertaking. So again, like really just made use of that advantage. Feels a bit cheesy, but it was just made, yeah, it's great opportunity really, it just made so much sense to do it in that way. And I could also say that it would add value to the overall company and that we get in there earlier. And that's kind of the way it's worked out in the, as I said, products often now start with products.

Chris Whyte (: 08:44

Hmm.

opportunity.

Hugo Martin (: 09:04

and then it kind of infiltrates into the rest of business. end up doing marketing support and creating the films. And that's a real big plus for me because I think it's at alloy with designer product and then help with the man-fetched liaison, but then kind of see you later. Whereas be able to see it the whole way through and collect these insights at the very beginning and then be able to tell that story through marketing communications.

It's just very satisfying and it's very beneficial for the client because it's the same people telling the same story. Right to the end and you can get very little dilution.

Chris Whyte (: 09:37

Absolutely,

Yeah, it's an interesting take isn't it because You know, especially in the product development physical product development kind of consultancy space a lot of time it's Consultancy is trying to add on the manufacturing piece. It's like taking it all the way through from Concept research concept through to manufacture but you guys are doing it more on the storytelling piece as well So it's it's the full suite. So yeah, that's it Yeah Yeah

Hugo Martin (: 10:04

Yeah, the whole way, yeah. And also including digital, there's quite a big overlap now between products and digital.

So, yeah, and that's really important, right, because we're a product nowadays that lots of it is in the digital user experience as well. So, yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 10:21

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's all interconnected, isn't it? one of the one of the businesses I'm working with now, they're looking for visualization, you know, to show off their, their kind of concepts to potential investors. It's like we know what we think it's going to look like. So we need someone to realize that to storytell and get investors excited about what they're buying into. It's all that kind of all interconnected. You were relatively kind of

Well, still pretty green, weren't you at that stage three years in you kind of learn a lot, but still got a lot to learn. I know I do want to move on to the main topics, but I think this is an important part of it really. Looking back at those early days with WMP, what would you say some of the biggest kind of take home lessons really or the challenges because setting something up from scratch, even though you've got the safety net of this established business, it's all new, isn't it?

Hugo Martin (: 11:18

Yeah,

guess the answer is one step at a time. So got the basic fundamentals from Alloy. But then, you know, the first challenge is how do you find clients, close things down. So, yeah, I winning the first project was kind of instrumental. So because obviously you come from Alloy, you can't show that work.

So it's really, you've got to find someone who will take that leap and trust you to do a good job. So the first ever project we did was a razor called the X1 for a company called Berlin Web. And it wasn't like it was an extremely profitable project. was a very small amount, but we needed the case study. And then one thing leads to another, and that won some awards and got kind of seen by an entrepreneur in America that led onto a

Chris Whyte (: 11:54

cool.

You need the case study. Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 12:11

projects, still one the biggest projects we've ever done off the back of a relatively small project. know, everything is just a case of getting something out and then trying really hard just to build relationships with everyone and each time do as good a job as you can possibly do so they all come back and your repeat business is massive for us, pretty much all of our clients are repeat. And then you can build on that and then get the kind of bigger clients each time and the kind of amounts we're charging.

Chris Whyte (: 12:13

wow.

Hmm.

future.

Hugo Martin (: 12:40

now for projects are just so different to what it was in the early days.

Chris Whyte (: 12:45

But you've got the confidence

and you've got the portfolio of case studies, you've learned a lot of lessons, you know kind of what problems you're good at solving. So you can sell on that.

Hugo Martin (: 12:51

Yeah.

Yeah, but I guess in those early days

we were kind of also still bringing value to the business and I was helping to design other stuff, exhibitions and all sorts of things which weren't product design. It's still being a product design being quite versatile can help out with these things. But yeah, mean, over time now it's just all to product design and helping with the marketing and UX side.

Chris Whyte (: 13:10

Yeah.

Cool. And how long did it take them from you joining to landing that first project?

Hugo Martin (: 13:25

back. I mean it was definitely a couple of, yeah, a while. Yeah, a couple of months to get it properly moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great.

Chris Whyte (: 13:34

Yeah, I bet you're buzzing.

Yeah, that's awesome. Cool. then yeah, fast forward today, you've got a you've got a small team and you mentioned on our kind of intake call for this, you know, actually, it's transformed into one of the most consistent and strategically important parts of WMP. Yeah, so yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 13:58

Yes, steady, yeah. And that's done to our pizza, I guess. Because

the cycles obviously, it takes a while to come back around again. But as long as you have enough clients who you compressed last time, they do come back. And for similar kind of projects, similar kind of scales, it's definitely more predictable than something like events, where it's much more companies often chopping change from suppliers and all sorts.

Chris Whyte (: 14:28

Yeah, absolutely. So, no, that's great. So on a prep call for this, you expressed a passion for kind of where process fits in versus intuition. I'm kind of segues nicely from what you just saying, because I imagine you've got a pretty tight process for keeping those kind of those clients coming back and not necessarily just leaving it to fate that or assume that they'll

they'll come back. You've still got to remind them of who you are. yeah, perhaps if you want to kick us off on where that came from there, there was a couple of cases, I think you mentioned.

Hugo Martin (: 15:08

Yeah, I

guess it's because we because we are consultancy and we jump between different sectors so much and See when you start a new project with a new client in the area You've got to be very good coming up to speed very quickly and understanding what the user shoes are what their needs are as a company and so, you know, we got we start to a lot more kind of research for certain projects But I still think it's a really interesting balance of process where

Sometimes it's highly important and sometimes you can get away with just being far more intuitive And I think it's kind of a topic people seem to think about quite a lot and I see quite a lot of posts on LinkedIn I'm sure you do of you know when when process can get in the way or when it could be extremely helpful and it's vital So it's kind of a different it's an interesting area and someone has to quote for a lot of projects You it's really important to kind of get that balance right and give the right amount of process or know when

you can actually can run out intuition a bit more. So I guess what I mean by process as well, because there's loads of processes in product design. So I guess I'm wrapping that in terms of things that fall outside of typical industrial design. Some projects, it's very much shape and form and working on that basis. But I'm talking about like really user research, interviewing, observational studies.

Chris Whyte (: 16:16

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 16:37

user journey mapping, which we do quite a lot of on complicated projects. And then, you know, past that point, that's kind of the learning side, but the validation steps that you might want to go through. So sometimes it's important to test that, you your concepts, which one is the appropriate one to go with before making like decisions on, you know, that lead to expensive results. Whereas intuition, of course, is much about using your

internal knowledge based on your experience to kind of go down that right direction. And there's all sorts of intuitions. Some people are really good at intuitively making something beautiful that people are going to love. people now have to take a great photo or, you know, really intuitive, gaining insights from a conversation. So there's different parts to intuition. But yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 17:30

Okay.

And I'm guessing some of the process comes in, you know, in terms of how the, how the client sees it as part of your, proposal. And, um, have you, have you ever lost work or feel like you may have lost work because your proposal had too much detail in terms of the process? Do you think that that's ever scared kind of a client off or?

Hugo Martin (: 17:57

Well, I guess in our industry, time is money. And so if you say you need to do this huge amount of research and a company feels they've got that in hand, then obviously there's a conflict to be had there. I wouldn't have lost any work with that because the way we quote is very transparent. can have always, I'll make a point talking through my quotes with the clients and making sure that they're happy with the number of research days we do and basically walk them through the plan of what I intend to do with their budget.

which helps a lot for us. So I'd say no, but it's important factor and that's why it's worth having a conversation about and being able to extract what they already know, because that's often an extremely helpful starting point of course.

Chris Whyte (: 18:41

Yeah,

so you've got that constant and immediate feedback loop, haven't you? can, you know, if you're sitting in the room or across the Zoom call with the client and you can sense that, I've got a bit overkill on the process here, I've added too much. You can dial that back in straight away and yeah, call the project back. Yeah. So.

Hugo Martin (: 19:02

Yeah, it's definitely a really important step that, yeah, because obviously,

like, guess the point is, like, for whatever we, if we did our quote, and basically how we use our time, we still need to get like our obligation is to get to a great result in the physical output. So, anyway, we've got to make the most, like, time efficient way to get to that end result that they're happy with.

Chris Whyte (: 19:29

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 19:33

with the budget that's available.

Chris Whyte (: 19:35

Absolutely.

So you've worked on a range of projects you were talking to me about that kind of range from highly structured projects to do with gas safety devices and then more intuition led around kind of pizza ovens, let's say. So how do you find kind of or how do you balance process and intuition in design? Because I guess there's a bit of a conflict, especially within the designer who just wants to create.

and then there's a process that needs to be followed. How do you balance that?

Hugo Martin (: 20:10

So I think it's very much dependent on the project. And so it's kind of a sliding scale here. I think what is the project scope is like the first point. Sometimes you can get quite a narrow scope. It's just industrial design. So for example, we did some work supporting White's internal kind of clean engineering team with some industrial design for their carbon bike frames. And then there, you know,

We didn't really do any research at all. They pointed out the geometry they wanted. We were really just sketching out on iPads how best to start this. And then was a 3D modelling exercise to get to good results. That's about as limited scope as we get to work with. Conversely, if you're working on a medical device, sometimes it's very much front end. You're interviewing people. It's very process-heavy. So, of course, that changes a lot.

The complexity of a project. The first project was a razor. It couldn't be any simpler. It was really just a handle. Whereas it was part of a bigger ecosystem and you've got to interface between different products, docking stations or chargers or calibration kit. And obviously that's very complex. And then it's kind of a level of ambition, I guess. Sometimes the goal of a project is to optimize something that's maybe not done before.

Chris Whyte (: 21:16

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 21:40

Sometimes you're creating something far more radical, you've got a very competitive market and you've got to search really hard to find the of standout points which can help you differentiate. So there are kind of more processes needed. Yeah, of course, whether it's an area that we would have experience in makes a big difference. Some projects, we are the customers and we are the target market in some ways, and other times not.

just kind of where you sit in your experience level and exposure to the area makes a big difference. And then as I said, like how much knowledge the internal team has that you can kind of, you know, get out of them. Even their mindset, I think makes a big difference in that some clients like actively want you to kind of challenge everything and kind of start fresh. And that's often bigger companies where there might be multiple stakeholders.

who all have got their kind of knowledge base and the job then is to kind of extract bits of information from each of them to kind of put up together this bigger holistic understanding of where you need to go. Others like you know very clearly know what they want and therefore you've got to go listen to them and go after it.

Chris Whyte (: 22:58

Yeah. you,

I'm getting you work, you're working with a range of companies as well from kind of the more established brands who I'm guessing have used consultancies in the past or worked with you previously. So they get that process. They get kind of the expectation, how the dynamic between kind of you guys and the client kind of how that's supposed to work or how it works best, you know, but then you'll work with startups as well who

may not have any experience working with outside consultancies, let alone creatives. I guess there's an education piece on there. How do you balance that kind of?

Hugo Martin (: 23:39

I think that's not too difficult for us because it's kind of part of the sell-in process. If someone's new to us, then we'll show them that's why case studies are so helpful. yeah, show them projects we've done in the past and the kind of steps we've taken the other clients through to get to a good result. And often in showing someone like how you're going to tackle their projects and why that's going to be helpful, then that kind of bridges that. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 24:05

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Okay, and I think when we spoke a little while ago as well, you highlighted nothing and teenage engineering as brands that lean more heavily into intuition. Do you see any shifts in industry, design consultants or consultancies that I speak to over recent months?

they're struggling, know, they're feeling like the market's contracting or it's been coming harder to compete as well, especially if there's, you know, companies going for cheaper freelance options, let's say, or moving away. Do you think there's a shift or, know, moving towards more structured kind of work or is there still a place for instinct?

Hugo Martin (: 24:54

No, I think it just depends

so much on, think that's why it's interesting because it's such a fluid spectrum. I think Nothing is a very interesting example in this because Adam Bates, I know, is the design director there and he's been tasked with building up the team. As for watching a clip, was rather eloquently explaining their process. And it's interesting because he's obviously from a Dyson background.

Chris Whyte (: 24:59

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 25:24

He worked 10 years at Dyson, pretty senior. So had all that kind of Dyson engineering rig, it would be like they're extremely process-oriented company, of course. I can't have to be of that scale. Whereas nothing at the very arty end of the spectrum. So it's interesting to see how he's kind of transitioned his kind of way. But I think what he said that was particularly interesting to me was that there's kind of a baseline of, you know, of

Chris Whyte (: 25:31

Very, yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 25:54

functionality in all their products. They obviously have to work well. They've got to be intuitive. They've got to be easy to use. They've got to be extremely well engineered. And that's kind of, you have to to be a flagship. But then there's this kind of like emotional layer beneath that of interest and kind of value add, which is a bit like what this kind of stuff that teenage engineering do. There's something quite different and deliberately different about their work. And that's the same with nothing products now.

in the, you know, the kind of the opposite approach to focus group approach. You know, you do focus groups too much, you end up with a full-blown day where everyone knows that story. Whereas nothing, they're kind of trying to be a bit rebellious and succeeding with that, I think. And like, and it's just funny to see how it's kind of panned out. Like if you were to ask someone what spec they wanted for a phone, they wouldn't be asking for flashy lights in the back, they? It's just, you know, but they put that in and those glyphs,

just seemed to really resonate with a certain kind of people. And I guess they're just being very well targeted. They know who their market is and who it's not, and they're building a community around that. And I think knowing who their market is not is part of that. They really are quite focused, which is, again, what you need to stand out. So companies that take that approach are quite bold. And as I say, do both elements. It's not process or intuition.

Chris Whyte (: 26:58

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 27:24

process to get the stuff working and make it functional but then also have something extra, bit of flair and bit of character which resonates with certain people and sells you products because you can't really afford to be out with...

Chris Whyte (: 27:39

Absolutely.

And they've got a great marketing team, especially the social media side. it really enjoyed the whole kind of, well, the jumping on the opportunity with the Jaguar rebrand and all that. It was amazing, wasn't it? Yeah. Jaguar follows nothing. Yeah. There must be a great deal of autonomy for that social media side for them just to go at that.

Hugo Martin (: 27:47

Yeah.

that got them a lot of millions of views. Yeah.

Yeah,

and they're very open on their own process, they? They invite ideas and they talk about it and they're very quite transparent in their design, also in the way they interact with people, I think is quite interesting.

Chris Whyte (: 28:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I'm listening to Creativity Inc at the moment. Another podcast guest recommended it and I can't remember who it was, but the founder's story from Pixar. And that's just reminded me of their kind of mentality of, know, anyone could talk to anyone, anyone can try something if it's to improve the business. Everyone's empowered to kind of give stuff a go. And I'm getting the sense that nothing I've got a similar kind of

Attitude there especially when it comes to yeah marketing because imagine a lot of companies There'd be an approval chain to go through or can I do this thing on thing and it pulls in Jaguar Land Rover is like no no you can't do that Yeah Yeah, and it's so you know they've got their that their target or they're they know who they're not appealing to and it just it works so fantastic

Hugo Martin (: 29:02

Yeah, they're of... Yeah, rebellious spirit.

They're the fastest

growing mobile company there is, think.

Chris Whyte (: 29:18

It's nuts. Why would

you get into designing mobile phones now? You it's you think about it kind of logically, it's doesn't make sense. But yeah, doing a great job. So I'm awesome. Okay, so when it comes to kind of working with clients, you know, there's there's a discussion sometimes whether to trust the process or trust their instincts. Is that ever kind of

something that you're working on with them or educating them on that kind of side of things.

Chris Whyte (: 29:55

I'm interrupting this episode to share some exciting things happening around Why Design. At the core of this podcast are the incredible design journeys my guests have been on and where they're heading. These journeys stem from the relationships they build, the communities they're part of, and the amazing achievements that come from collaboration. So beyond the podcast, we're hosting regular online huddles and quarterly meetups in the UK with plans underway for an annual gathering in the US.

We're also running hands-on workshops both in person at Makerspaces and online to connect and inspire people in physical product development. So if you'd like to join us or stay in the loop about upcoming events, sign up at teamkodu.com forward slash events or click the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode.

Hugo Martin (: 30:45

As I said, when we quote, we kind of lay out what we want to do with the project. Because I guess we're gauging at the early stage if we need to do user interviews and is there's going be much value in doing it user journey map. And as I said, that totally depends on what you are designing and the company and all that other stuff we spoke about. So yeah, it's just kind of matching it up basically to what the need is and what their internal team is and so on.

Chris Whyte (: 30:55

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 31:13

Maybe I should just go into some real-life examples might be easier to kind of visualize it. yeah, I two projects that were kind of interesting I thought we were kind of bringing up. First one was quite process heavy So designing a company called Crocon, they do gas, like life-saving gas safety products that are wearable, but there's also kind of calibration devices to help make sure that they're working properly for the lifetime.

Chris Whyte (: 31:17

Go for it, yeah. Shoot.

Hugo Martin (: 31:43

So obviously quite high stakes, you know, don't want to mess this stuff up, it needs to be quite rigorous. So that was a very interesting project. The second one was a lot of fun. This company called Gosney, may know they do quite high-end pizza ovens. Lovely products, lovely company. And our project there was to design a new oven, an ultra-possible pizza oven, to fit into their range and could be more in line with the Dome, which is their premium product.

Chris Whyte (: 31:56

Pete's Rivens,

Hugo Martin (: 32:12

So yeah, both like extremely interesting companies, both complete like powerhouses, really the top of their game and very successful with in both cases, a very talented internal team. kind of, you know, quite in a way, quite daunting to start working with companies. Pending girls' images for mood boards for years before we got talking to them. So it was quite exciting. I saw the Crocom one, very savvy one. So I mean, was just as soon as we met them and went to them.

their premises to talk through the project. was very obvious it was going to be a very complex project from the outset. There's so many different use cases, many different personas who use the product in different ways. As I said, the products are wearable gas safety things. You might wear those if you're working in a oil refinery or steelworks or even down sewers and stuff, often quite confined spaces where there's dangerous gases you need to be aware of.

Chris Whyte (: 33:03

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 33:13

And so some of the team members who use these are like responsible for whole groups of people. They might be in charge of 20 people. As if for them, they care about tracking the data and making sure everyone's safe, of course, from wearing them. They can see that they're on and functioning. Ironically, the people who wear them often don't even really want to wear them. They're all concerned about like being tracked and this kind of stuff and really treat them extremely poorly. And seeing the product in a

Chris Whyte (: 33:37

How interesting.

Hugo Martin (: 33:42

or finding it was fascinating because it's covered in grease, most sensors are covered up, just been bashed and really almost deliberately vandalized, they were so badly looked after. Then there's kind of a data collection side and how that works. Our software team were also, our UX team were key in this project as well.

Chris Whyte (: 33:54

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 34:08

And as I kind of said earlier, like it was interesting because there's so many experts that company, some people are really not about the science of how the sensors work and that kind of stuff. Some are very much more on user side and unsound the hurdles that people face. So in a way, our job was to kind of extract that knowledge from those multiple stakeholders and bring it all together. So we did quite a bit of

research, a lot of on-site user interviews, which was very insightful. But one of our team was sent off on a confined space course, which means like calling through little tunnels and literally training. He's got this difficulty, he could be a gas safety expert now. He had to shave off his beard in the process so the mask would fit, which he wasn't sliced about, but other than that, it was quite interesting.

Chris Whyte (: 34:45

correctly, yeah.

There's two things there,

there's the crawling into tight spaces, that's a no from me, then kind of shaving your beard off as well if it's a significant beard.

Hugo Martin (: 35:04

Yeah.

Yeah,

he left a nasty moustache on for a while. that was interesting. So they really got into it from their side and really helped us do a good job there. And that's not a project that you could wing. You really have to understand it. And as an example, trying to think of an insight that would be easy to explain. But we found that

Chris Whyte (: 35:10

You

Hugo Martin (: 35:36

Imagine you're calling down to the sewer, And you're looking down, you're breathing down, you might be breathing heavily because you're climbing stuff on. They were getting a lot of false alarms from people. The device is mounted on your kind of shirt there. People were kind of looking downwards, breathing downwards, blowing carbon dioxide from their breath over the sensor, which is causing the alarms to off. They're thinking, well crap, is there carbon dioxide here or have I set up a false alarm? So...

Chris Whyte (: 35:50

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 36:06

Knowing that kind of thing, can go, okay, well, can take an attribute from that. can remove those sensors from the front and put them on the bottom face, which is what we did. So there's quite a lot of things like that that we would never have known. If it was purely an industrial design project and we were asked to make things look good, they would have stayed on the front face and that would have been an issue forever. So there a of learnings which led to a good result.

Chris Whyte (: 36:13

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 36:31

And again, the sensors on the bottom is easy to dock into calibration system, there's quite a of which can add up. And then the process didn't really stop at initial research. We got a lot of value after the kind of validation steps early on. So once we designed our concepts, we were making just quick 30 3D prints and visualizing the renders and showing them to people we'd interviewed before. And that was really encouraging.

We wouldn't tell them too much about what we'd done, which of these do you like? But we could see they were instantly drawn to the ones that had the of right reads, that we also backed with our intuition of having heard all this stuff, which is the best way to go. So that was kind of really helpful. And as it's early on, you can pivot at that point and make changes, which we did. So that was kind of an example of a full process-y project.

And of course, the budget has to reflect that. Whereas Gosney, different set up completely, really strong brand with lots of extremely knowledgeable stakeholders. So Tom Gosney, who we're working with directly on the project, is obviously the founder and owner. And we worked very closely with him and the super passionate team. So that project was more about, we still did research.

But was less speaking to users. It was more really finding out from the stakeholders what was the way to go. So we spoke to the head of brand, the head of customer services to find out issues with existing products, the engineering team, and of course, Tom to get his vision, which was totally invaluable for the project. We did also interview brand ambassadors and some other users that we just found ourselves.

to get just to question their internal understanding. But there was less of that really. And yeah, again, it was interesting in that because of the kind of project and the kind of area that we found pain points, we had to kind of, again, it was a bit more nuanced. I'll give you an example. Whether pain points are real pain points or kind of an on paper pain point.

So, if you ever use the pizza oven.

Chris Whyte (: 39:03

I've not, no, I had a pizza oven attachment to my Weber barbecue. I've got a kettle barbecue and apparently you can cook pizzas on it. I bought the pizza stone and everything. Could never get the oven up to the right temperature. Yeah. Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 39:09

Yeah.

Well that's it. That's what I was about to say. Cooking pizza is a temperature game.

Girls in the ovens get extremely hot. And talking like 500 degrees hot is unbelievable. It's a big rolling flame. so when they sent us products which really upgraded our WMP lunch setup. And we're using them a lot. And again, anyone who's just getting into cooking pizzas, the first thing you do is burn the shit out of it.

Chris Whyte (: 39:27

Yeah.

Hahaha

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 39:48

It's

like it's impossible not to when you when you first learn it because you stick in and it's you know, they cook in 60 to 90 seconds is really awesome. And when you're new to it, don't you don't really know about it. It keeps being turning constantly. It's not burnt. So like, you know, in a Crocon project, we'd been well as a pain point, let's fix it. Let's let's make a rotating stone or let's

Chris Whyte (: 39:50

You

Yeah.

Hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 40:14

have the flame kind of as a ring so it's all even and not burning in one spot. Whereas I guess speaking to Tom and their team and also kind of eventually learning how to do these things, like they were very, very clear that especially Tom was like, this is not a microwave. This is not a clinical way of cooking. is cooking with fire. And Tom's like extremely

Chris Whyte (: 40:34

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 40:42

charismatic character, if you've seen his videos, he's like larger than life, kind of. And he talks a lot about that kind of, know, primeval experience cooking with fire and how it's kind of a theatre, it's kind of something that people actually enjoy. And it's true, once you, the faff with making a pizza is the preamble stuff. It's making the dough and getting all the ingredients right and kind of being prepped.

Chris Whyte (: 41:01

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 41:12

when you're doing it is over in 60 seconds. It's really not a big deal to turn it. And when you get good at it, you you kind of want it to have these hotspots so that you can like get this kind of even, even charring of, they call it like leopard spots where it's slightly bad in areas and it makes it look great and tastes fantastic. So yeah, there's kind of stuff that would be a pain point, which is not really once you kind of get more into it, of course.

Chris Whyte (: 41:29

Yeah.

Really, I guess a lot of it's more about the education of the users and the fact that you're going to burn the first five pizzas and then you'll get the hang of it. know. Yeah. Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 41:42

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. they do do that. They've actually got like channels on YouTube of like how to

cook and it takes you through from the basics through to making amazing food. So yeah, I think the education ties is it like educate rather than rather than like dumb down the experience and make it boring. Yeah, so it's that since

Chris Whyte (: 42:01

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's

not a replacement for the oven in your kitchen. It's an entertaining piece and it's a focal piece for a garden party. Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 42:17

Yeah, theatre is the right word for it. kind of

an art to it people enjoy that and don't want that taken away from them. It's not like we didn't learn stuff. We still had a lot of things that we changed in comparison to the product we were replacing. In line with their arc and their dome, we moved the burner to the side of the product. Two advantages. One is it made it lot more compact. wasn't as long.

Chris Whyte (: 42:25

Yeah, absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Hugo Martin (: 42:44

But also it's not easier to see but the hotspot because it's not like this, you know, flame in the back and the bit of the backs burning but I can't see. We put the controls like they were on the back so you put them around the side next to the thermometer so you can more easily get at it. lot of it of course is about possibility. So obviously we put these like big chunky handles on the top which you can grab and they don't get too hot. But then possibility is not just can I carry it, it's also like

Chris Whyte (: 42:52

Got you.

Hugo Martin (: 43:13

weight reduction, so we reduced the weight by 30%. And that had the knock-on of, well, it's faster to heat up and to cool down, which is, if you're at a beach cooking, you kind of don't want to be waiting for an hour for it to cool down. That was very important. And then looking at the kind of picture of what accessories will enhance this experience and mean you can genuinely cook outdoors in Malinaua. So yeah, there's a lot of work in there. And then it was all wrapped up in it.

Chris Whyte (: 43:24

Yeah.

That's cool.

Hugo Martin (: 43:44

kind of like super robust, utilitarian, Land Rover Defender kind of aesthetic that really made it appealing and kind of aspirational. That you could, like it just looked like it can handle anything and take the matches, know. So yeah, it was kind of good example of just taking stuff from them and really like learning from them rather than, you know, and I guess that's what the research was.

Chris Whyte (: 44:03

That's awesome.

Hugo Martin (: 44:14

bring us up to speed with what was going to be right for the brand.

Chris Whyte (: 44:17

That's brilliant. you said, you emailed me the day to say that that's just gone live, has it, that project?

Hugo Martin (: 44:25

Yeah, they've launched it on Instagram. It's getting a very positive response so far.

Chris Whyte (: 44:27

Watch this.

Awesome. That's great. It's

definitely on my to buy list is a pizza oven for the garden. We've got a bunch of work to do in the house first before I spend money on outside. I do. It was a blessing having a nice big garden during lockdown. When things opened up a little bit, you could have your little kind of bubbles of six people. We made the most of the space outdoors. So that's awesome.

Looking forward then, know, where do you see kind of the future of industrial design and kind of trends, you you've seen a lot of people are worried about AI stealing their jobs or kind of, you know, consultancy changes as we mentioned earlier, with respect to a lot of consultancy struggling and budgets tight, there's freelancers stealing projects, know, stealing is probably a bit harsh, but you know, taking projects that would normally have gone to a

Hugo Martin (: 45:24

Yeah.

It's here.

Chris Whyte (: 45:31

consultancy. Where do you see the future going? What trends excites you most or in fact terrify you most?

Hugo Martin (: 45:43

I think with new business, it's obviously we're going keep pushing that, it's finding new people. But the close collaborations we've already got with the clients that we enjoy working with are extremely important to us. think the kind of relationship side, as you know, with your job really, is fundamental. And that's about making sure you really try as hard as you possibly can every single project.

Chris Whyte (: 46:02

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 46:11

Your last project is your last reference really. So keeping that up. But also just being nice and personable and appreciative and so on is big. I think we have definitely benefited from offering that wide range of support. So not just in industrial design but branching out and being

Chris Whyte (: 46:22

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 46:39

quite like open to change is definitely being good. If we've been, we only do industrial design, it would have been pretty difficult over the years, but because we've, we can have opened ourselves up to doing just consumer insight or whatever the client wants, we try and be as helpful as we can. And as I said, the marketing stuff ends up being quite a big part of our business. So yeah, helping more holistically, I think it's definitely been great.

And also said earlier, like enjoyable, like I like, I get a kick out of that stuff. And people who design the products are often good at telling a story and visualizing stuff and photography and so on. So yeah, that makes sense. I would love to get into something we're actively trying to get more into kind of joint venture relationships with clients where it's more of a win-win rather than transactional, you know, do the work for a fee.

which is something that we're currently pursuing now with some of our closest clients.

Chris Whyte (: 47:42

Yeah,

some businesses I know are having some joy with that, especially with smaller businesses or startups where they might not have the budget upfront, but the opportunity to go into more of a

Hugo Martin (: 47:56

Yeah, that's

it. There needs to be some kind of risk reward arrangement for that to be. Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 47:59

Absolutely, yeah. And especially

if you're starting off as well as a consultancy, like you need to get the case studies together and there might be a future payoff in royalties or whatever. Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 48:09

Yeah, it's tricky to arrange and it's tricky

to kind of, because it's kind of like businessy stuff that we're not necessarily going to be too well attuned to. But I think it's a question of like, I'm keen to try this stuff now. we've hopefully got enough kind of baseline client work to be enough to give this a shot. It's harder to do if you need the work. So it's kind of a luxury that you grow into after.

Chris Whyte (: 48:35

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 48:39

as I said, like 10 years of 14 years of doing this. Yeah, so that's, you mentioned AI, like when I think when it first first came out, it was a bit daunting. And it's kind of as a, as someone who is an instinctive and like, he's somebody who loves the concept generation side. Initially, I was like a bit felt threatened by that, but we have to embrace it. And we have embraced it and

Chris Whyte (: 48:43

Absolutely,

Hugo Martin (: 49:09

quite enjoying it now, funnily enough. It's kind of a bit gone full circle where I'm using it in various stages just to make things more efficient and quicker. yeah, the results are pretty awesome.

Chris Whyte (: 49:22

that's what it's all about isn't it yeah

and there's this yeah some kind of people in the industry that are a bit nervous about or worried for the future generation of industrial designers and how AI is going to impact that yeah

Hugo Martin (: 49:40

I agree with that. think it's a

dangerous point we have right now because AI is very well if you're the one making these things decisions which direction to go. But as it's been widely publicized, it's not great for more junior industrial designers who don't have the experience to learn the intuition to guide the direction and that they're more like being replaced by the vast output of concept ideas and so on.

Chris Whyte (: 50:01

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 50:10

So yeah, I do see that as a risk and I don't know what to do about it.

Chris Whyte (: 50:10

Yeah.

It's tricky, isn't it? Because, just speaking from my own experience, there's a lot of kind of administration tasks or kind of roles in my business that, you know, two, three years ago might have been delegated to a junior member of staff or administrator or kind of an assistant. But now there's AI tools there that can do it very cheaply and very quickly and very effectively. You know, if you give it the right input.

if it's aimed at the right thing.

Hugo Martin (: 50:46

Yeah,

I think these things always have waves, don't they? think CAD was the last wave in that industry. Tommy designed the action camera, the senior mechanical engineering team from the manufacturing side, really experienced guy, was very senior, but he said that back in the day when he first started working, that project would have had so many draftsmen, he's talking like 100 draftsmen, working all the sections and...

Chris Whyte (: 50:50

Hmm.

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 51:16

create all the drawings needed to make tooling. And he could just do it all with one career license and get the same result with today's audience. This seems like it's the next step of that. In a way, think Hector, who you've probably seen a lot on LinkedIn, has done a great job of helping to show that designers are still very important and the...

Chris Whyte (: 51:26

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 51:43

The decision making process and that intuition that you need to guide it is right. I just slightly fear for the juniors coming through as to how they will, because they'll be able to embrace it and use the tools, but just from the number of people recruiting for those, I don't know.

Chris Whyte (: 52:00

Yeah.

Where do you see, or even if you might not have an answer to this, but where do you see the necessary pivot to be then in industrial design is to be, you know, still be relevant at that early stage.

Hugo Martin (: 52:17

Well, there's always still, currently at least, there's still jobs to be done as in, know, because right now AI takes you to a stage, it's usually what helps with the insight and kind of, as you say, project management side of it. But then, industrial design at least, it's still like an image. So knowing someone's got to take that and make something useful out of it. So there's still that kind of step of translating that and...

AI can lie, as a sketch can lie. So there's still lots of working out to do to actually translate that into something tangible that you can actually make. Yeah, so I think to be honest, it would just speed. And also we're only really talking about a section of the wider process, the kind of ideation bit really. So I think in a way we'll just do more with the budget we have and hopefully it won't really impact anyone.

Chris Whyte (: 52:50

Yeah.

Hugo Martin (: 53:18

Everyone would just be that bit more efficient and that bit faster and the client would get that much more value. That's the way I see it, rather than wiping out jobs. We've still got people on our team who do parts of the process that most people wouldn't and that's just the way it works.

Chris Whyte (: 53:23

Yeah, it's just.

Yeah, end of the day comes down to the problems that you're looking to solve and the way that you go about solving those problems might shift because of the tools and technology available to you. But you still need a person or people involved to identify those and point the tools in the right way. it's especially when it comes to product design. It might look great or radical or whatever, but if it can't be made or if it, you know, if the sensor's on the wrong side, the AI is not going to know that.

Hugo Martin (: 53:54

Yeah.

Chris Whyte (: 54:05

That's only through breathing down into your chin, isn't it?

Hugo Martin (: 54:06

Well, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So in a way,

it puts more importance and more emphasis on the two parts we discussed of like finding out what's actually important to guide the product and then using the design intuition to translate that into something that's actually useful. Because all the front end, the process bit really does is get you to a point where you've got a big bucket of ideas that you can either use or not use.

Chris Whyte (: 54:15

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Hugo Martin (: 54:34

And then there's that kind of filtering process of which ideas are worth including and which do we not, which we discard. And that's the kind of role of the designers I see. And then on top of that, what's the, as Adam from Nothing said, what's the kind of icing on the cake? What's the sprinkling of personality that the product has to help stand out and actually flourish in the market?

Chris Whyte (: 54:39

Yeah.

Yeah, massively. Cool. So we're kind of approaching time. Here go. looking forward, you know, in the next 12 months or so, what are you most excited about, whether it be with WNP or kind of personally or broader in terms of the market?

Hugo Martin (: 55:23

That's a broad question.

Chris Whyte (: 55:25

I did a big one.

Hugo Martin (: 55:26

to end on.

Well, we've got lot of exciting projects coming out soon, which I'm looking forward to kind of, you know, seeing the market reception too. That's always exciting. You know, when you've been working on something for so long, it's nice to see these things come out. And yeah, and just clients I've kind of got sight of so far, there's a lot of interesting stuff to do. So yeah, I mean, I obviously can't talk about but yeah, as I said, really just kind of keeping

developing where we've been and continuing to work with the clients that we really enjoy working with. Yeah, we've been very lucky so far.

Chris Whyte (: 56:00

Awesome.

Fantastic. yeah, so now that's been really, really interesting, really kind of interesting take on your insights into and your views on kind of process versus intuition. And yeah, I've really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you so much for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Hugo Martin (: 56:22

Thank you, Chris.

Cheers. Thank you very much.

Chris Whyte (: 56:28

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Why Design. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a review wherever you're listening. It really helps others discover the podcast. And while you're at it, why not share it with a friend or colleague who do enjoy it too. If you'd like to stay connected or explore more about the work we're doing at Kodu.

feel free to visit teamkodu.com or connect with me, Chris Whyte on LinkedIn. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time.