Timeline Written Out
(1954 - 2000)
-
1954
AMPEX AMPEX was founded in the 40s as the first venture capital funded design firm in the bay, but It wasn't until the the 50s that Dale Gruye and Nolan Volt arrived and began to work there as designers.
-
1960s
Center for Design Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts as a prototype for multi-disciplinary, Peter Lowe worked as the director for the Center for Design in San Francisco in the 1960s.
-
1968
NCR While NCR was founded in the 1800s, it wasn't until the late 1960s where Frank Guyre and David Kelly joined.
-
1966
GVO In 1966, Dale Gruye, Nolan Vogt, and George Opperman founded GVO. Many notable designers worked there who later found their own consultancies such as: Phil Bourgeois, Jeff Smith, Peter Lowe, Gerard Furbershaw, Robert Brunner, Young Kim, and Frank Guyre.
-
1969
Esslinger Design In 1969, Hartmut Esslinger founded Esslinger Design in Matlangen, Germany, and in subsequent years, Peter Muller assumed the role of VP.
-
1978
David Kelly Design After leaving NCR and earning his masters degree in Product Design at Stanford, David M. Kelly along with Dean Hovey founded Hovey-Kelly Design in 1978 which later turned into David Kelly Design.
-
1980
Smart Design In 1980, Smart Design was founded by Davin Stowell, Tom Dair, Tucker Viemeister, and Tamara Thomsen in New York City. They later on opened an office in San Francisco.
-
1982
Interform In 1982, designers Peter Lowe, Peter Muller, Gerard Furbershaw, Jeff Smith and Robert Brunner left GVO and Frog Design to form Interform.
-
1983
Frog Design Hartmut Esslinger moved to Palo Alto, CA in 1983 to form Frog Design and landed large clients such as Apple. Many notable designers work there who later found their own companies such as: Dan Harden, Yves Behar, and Gadi Amit.
-
1983
Studio Red In 1983, Phil Bourgeois left GVO and started his own design consultancy, StudioRed, in Redwood City. Later on, Ken Wood and Frank Guyre join.
-
1984
Lunar In 1984, Gerard Furbershaw, Jeff Smith, and Robert Brunner founded the design consultancy, Lunar Design. Ken Wood and Brett Lovelady later on joined the team.
-
1986
Inno Design In 1986, Young Kim, left GVO and founded design consultancy, INNODESIGN in Palo Alto.
-
1991
IDEO In 1991, IDEO was formed by a merger of 3 different companies: David Kelly Design, ID Two, and Matrix Product Design.
-
1994
Astro Studios Brett Lovelady and Jordan Reiss founded design consultancy Astro Studios in 1994.
-
1995
Bould Design In 1995, Fred Bould started design consultancy, Bould Design, in San Mateo.
-
1995
Shook Design Jim Shook founded design consultancy Shook Design in 1998 in Palo Alto.
-
1996
Speck Design In 1996, David Law, Tony Lillios, Craig Janik founded design consultancy, Speck Design.
-
1999
Surface Inc Founded by Eric Bauswell, Surface Ink began in 1999 as an engineering partner to Apple Computer.
-
1999
Whipsaw In 1999, Dan Harden founded design consultancy, Whipsaw in San Jose.
-
1999
Fuseproject Yves Behar founded design consultancy FuseProject in San Francisco.
-
2000
Newdeal Design Gadi Amit founded NewDealDesign in San Francisco along with Chris Lenart.