Astro Studios worked with Nike on the design of the Nike+ Fuelband.
This is the second profile in our series on American design entrepreneurs, looking at how they got where they are, what they do all day, and what advice they have for other designers running their own businesses. Read last week’s profile here.
Brett Lovelady has discovered the sweet spot. The company that he founded in 1994, Astro Studios, is now a 28-person consultancy based in San Francisco and known for groundbreaking product design and branding for major clients like Nike and HP. Six blocks away is the headquarters of Astro Gaming, a spin-off business he co-founded in 2006 to design and produce premium gaming products. Skullcandy acquired the business in 2011 and now Lovelady splits his time between helming his original firm and serving as a creative head for Astro Gaming.
But while Lovelady may be balancing two companies with nearly 60 employees between them, he still acts like a creative upstart at a small firm. “At Astro we consider ourselves to be small, even though we are more of a mid-sized firm now,” he says. “We’re fearless, we’ll jump into any project and apply design principles, and we’ll have fun. We are nimble enough to work with entrepreneurs starting a business, but we can also rally a team for a major brand roll-out. That has led to big opportunities.” Like designing the Xbox 360, or the iPAQ for Compaq.
Lovelady and Astro Gaming’s wireless A50 Headset
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