Designer? Engineer? Product Design?

The terminology in design.. It’s a confusing world. “Product design,” “designer,” and “engineer” all get thrown around loosely with a wide array of intended definitions. The software and hardware worlds have been fighting to claim the terms & normalize them as their own. No doubt, good design translates across industries. A talented designer can excel in products, app design, websites, landscapes, architecture, etc. A great engineer can understand structures, programming, electronic devices, etc. That said, software and hardware design generally have quite different skillsets, workflows, and outputs.

So how do we define what we do? We help bring ideas to market in the hardware space. I suppose the proper terms are “industrial design” (another misnomer of sorts) & mechanical engineering. Product design is the logical, all encompassing description of what we do, but the software tech industry will fight me on that..