Neo Nguyen | Vietnamese Industrial Designer

DESIGN & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Where Design Begins

Neo Nguyen, driven by a passion for beautiful and functional design, approaches product development with clarity, restraint, and purpose. His work is rooted in the belief that good design emerges from a strong process - one that balances thoughtful exploration with disciplined execution.

Through years of hands-on experience across industrial design and product development, Neo has developed a working approach that prioritizes simplicity, efficiency, and long-term value. Each project is guided by the same principle: creating designs that are not only visually refined, but genuinely useful and enduring.

Building a Strong Design Process

Neo believes that building a strong design process is essential to achieving success in industrial design and product development. We maintain a strong focus on efficiency and timeline management to ensure that the project is completed on time and to the highest possible standard.

Evaluation by Physical Model & Testing

Physical model prototyping and Testing are crucial steps in our industrial design process. We use 3D printing technology* to create prototype models and test the assembly, ensuring that the design is accurate, functional and aesthetically pleasing. By identifying potential issues at this stage, we can make necessary adjustments before the final product is produced.

(*) In-house FDM and SLA (resin) printers to boost the speed of prototyping.

SCOPE OF WORK

Industrial Design Researching

The earliest stage of the design process begins with the identification of problems that need to be solved, needs that must be addressed and desires that need to be sated. Design research tends to produce knowledge that can be defined as trans-disciplinary and heterogeneous in nature and that which seeks to improve the world.

Some popular design research methods:
- Product Autopsy
- Scenarios
- Shadowing
- Internet Searches
- Literature Reviews
- Competitor Product Analysis
- Mind Mapping
- User narration
- Brand DNA Analysis
- Market and Retail Research

Ideation - Industrial Design Idea Sketching

Ideation means involving the creation of a number of different viable concept designs in various ways like sketching and mockups. Ideation allows me to wrestle with design possibilities and attempt to give form and meaning to an idea; it firms up the results of researching into ideas.

Watch Design Ideation, hand sketches

Design Development & Detail Design

This phase seeks to refine the chosen concept into a product that satisfies the requirements outlined in the Product Design Specification; Many processes and methods will be applied and mixed while developing designs. This phase also covers the key steps of transforming the chosen concept design into a fully detailed design, with all dimensions and specifications necessary to make the product specified on a detailed drawing.

top-front view in detail rendering (bottle's cap)

bottom-back view in detail rendering (bottle's cap)

Mock-up & Rapid Prototype

Mock-up and rapid prototype, life-size physical model, used to evaluate the physical interaction, scale and proportion of product design concepts. Mock-ups will be built in easily fabricated materials such as rigid card, wood and foam, it can be used to test the color, finish and other specific details for proving the viability of a potential design approach. Then, the rapid prototype (mostly in plastic) is often used to check the design of parts before committing to production tooling. A range of different materials and 3D printing techniques can be used, and subsequently finished by plating, resin reinforcing and painting.