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Meet Phil Brace of phil&teds
phil&teds was formed in 1995 to help parents retain a sense of self and live a dynamic life with kids. Based in New Zealand, they offer a stylish range of products that allow parents to adapt and survive. They have a strong, fresh sense of design and we were anxious to speak to them about their product creation process. Phil Brace is the design leader at phil&teds. We recently caught up with Phil to explore some projects at phil&teds on the eve of the company’s introduction of a fabulous new jogging stroller called the “Sub 4” aka “The world’s fastest jogger.”
Can you tell about your background Phil?
Well this is a timely chat as I celebrate my 25th year in design! Wow, I can hardly believe the focus has been so narrow for so long! Actually, I love design, I love seeing new product in the market, and I’m still to do my best work! Graduated in 1985, and selected to work in one of our premier product developing companies – “fisher&paykel” – me and my mate invented what is now known in the world as the “dishdrawer” (yes, a dishwasher in a drawer), what I learned from that, with an IDSA award in our pocket, is that if you can dream it, you can achieve it!!
Dishdrawer
So from corporate design, to self-employment, to design leader in a dynamic company (that produces what we sell), I have, for quite some time now, put one foot in front of the other to live the design dream to create new product to this world.
Tell us about your role and your team at phil&teds please.
I met my boss Campbell Gower, a self made entrepreneur with the Xfactor. phil&teds had just undergone an external design review and were seeking a “design leader” to front the development team. I really liked the cut of Campbell’s jib, and was keen to sign on with a view to leverage his skill in turning product development into revenue excellence. I look after a team of 20 so it’s secretly quite a large development team for little old NZ. I’m a designer, and a leader, so I try and lead by example, compete to have the best ideas, and most of all have fun!
Are all of your product designs done in-house? Do you start with a pencil, a whiteboard, modo or what?
To be honest I am pretty old school when it comes to creativity and development. My business card says “imagination to reality” – it all starts as an idea, gets refined on a sketch pad, then proven in the workshop, after that we visualise on screen (these days in modo!) before committing to the likes of the engineering tools for implementation. I’m not such a fan of CAD development without first engaging the brain!
Conceptual design
How many conceptual alternatives will you produce before settling on one? How heavily do you depend on purely virtual prototyping?
Always as few as possible! I am a firm believer that you know in your heart the right path to take – mostly if you second guess this, all you do is consume time with another idea, seldom a better idea! These days virtual imaging is the norm to communicate and excite the team, while physical prototyping is there to prove the idea pre-tooling.
Seat concept
You use both Solidworks and modo. Tell me about the role of each in this latest project, the Sub4 jogging stroller please.
For implementation Solidworks is the tool of choice for the design and engineering team. We’re not designing space-shuttles just yet, so SW is perfect for plastic parts, extrusions, and the mechanics of folding mechanisms. modo provides the pre-design visuals, and later the accurate renders from the SW data. I still use VMRL exports from SW via blender to LWO and then to modo! – crazy but easy to control the polys. The sub4 was created with the view that sports-minded, athletic, bike riding parents who love to run would actually like to be able to run with their strollers! The sub4 needed to look “FAST”, be able to corner “FAST”, stop “FAST”, fold “FAST” and small, and most of all be cool, and leverage the “FAST” moving cycle industry. The sub4 is the mountain bike of the cycle world.
modo and SolidWorks
For something like the seat, how did you go from an approved concept to something that can be manufactured?
At p&t, we are fortunate to be able to develop and produce pretty much whatever we choose to make. Having said that we don’t like to muck around with projects in the hope that we will invent something fantastic over-time “skunk-works style!”. We are focused, committed to results, and drive our thinking from the top down. We always test the waters in advance, usually via other projects, but in the case of the “aerocore” seat for the sub4, I had some previous experience in EVA with some moulded protective breastplates for women athletes and we benchmarked against a seating concept from a kids bike. The goal for us is to increase speed, reduce risk, and innovate in our own market. A moulded seat that is waterproof, hypo-allergenic, easy-clean, soft where it needs to be soft, hard where it needs to be hard, offered lots of opportunity for design – but in this case we just had to tool it up to really know!
Seat detail
When did you first hear about modo?
I seem to have had some kind of natural aptitude with CG, even before the days of CG! I remember when I did my college “tech drawing“ exams that I couldn’t bring myself to do an isometric, opting for a hand-rendered perspectives! 30 years later its still the same, still looking for the best tools for the job. I cut my teeth on catia, then proE, followed by a decent five-year stint with Rhino (focused on surface modeling), and archicad for some personal projects. About 10 years ago a mate introduced me to “rendering” and from that day on I’ve been a hooked (amateur) – trolling the web, and fiddling with maya, artlantis, and others led me to modo and Maxwell both in their pre-release states. I immediately invested in both using modo for modeling and Maxwell for wonderfully slow renders!! It was a crazy idea but my first ambitious polygon model was the audi RSQ from “iRobot” of which I managed about 80% completion before hitting the render button in Maxwell then moving on!
car model in modo
clay rendering in modo
We hear from some CAD users that modo is not “CAD-like” and I wonder what your thoughts are about how and where modo fits in with the industrial design process?
All CG tools are CAD-like! modo is precise down to the micron, but has the dual benefit of both hard and soft modeling. To be fair we used to favour Rhino for our “ID” work, but these days modo for me is the tool of choice. I did my very first animation rig for the sub4 in modo, so even the benefits of Solidworks with its “kinematics” is dropping off for me as an industrial designer. I certainly am no Andy Brown, or Yazan Malkosh, but I get the job done and improve day-by-day. I tell my young team religiously to “never give up the tools.”
modo renderings and prototype images
At phil&teds you have had images of your final product quite a bit in advance of the product’s actual availability to consumers. Is this a big benefit?
My job as a designer is actually a sales role! Reality is everything, so as the cost of prototyping increases it’s great to balance this with a good dose of CG to do the job!
Product marketing material
Are there other advantages to having modo capability in house as opposed to contracting things like visualization out?
At phil&teds we don’t do too much contracting as the team is quite large. However, if and when we do its not because the contractors offer an extra skill-set, it’s usually because of resource constraints or time pressure. I like to have the tools in-house, I like the team to have the satisfaction, and the personal achievement in getting the product to the market. We are relentless about speed-to-market, so we need the tools at hand. Last week I even converted three old raid servers to modo for network rendering!
Are you in contact with other modo users in New Zealand?
A few pop up now and then on the forum and say hi, but sadly, it seems I don’t have too many modo mates over here!
How have you found the modo experience?
I can honestly say that my modo experience has been the best of the (many) software solutions I have dabbled with over the years! - this includes you, Brad, the newsletters, the training, the tools, the presets, the crazy community network, and most importantly the quality of the product itself – first-class honours to you Luxology – I LOVE modomania.
