San Francisco
A special place for industrial designers.
You know how New Yorkers have that smugness about living in New York City?
Like they’re better than you because they live in a shoebox and ride a smelly subway to work every day?
(Just kidding. I actually ❤️New York. It was always a dream of mine to live there, but the opportunity has never come. Please don’t send me hate mail.)
I think I’m starting to get that feeling about San Francisco.
At least, after more than a decade of living here, I’m starting to really appreciate what a special place this is for industrial designers and how lucky I am to have been here during a formative time in my career.
An unlikely combination factors has led to the city by the bay becoming a hotspot for industrial design.
The counter-culture movement of the 60s that is deeply rooted in San Francisco means the city embraces the new and different, making it a natural place for artists and designers.
The proximity of Silicon Valley and the rise of tech has lifted industrial design along with it, giving rise to a significant local design economy that could (at a time) probably sustain itself by servicing just those technology companies.
Agencies that would become giants of the design industry like IDEO, Frog, and others choosing to set up HQ in or near SF cemented the city’s place in the design world, and continues to draw a constant stream of young design talent from all over the globe here.
The simple fact that SF is a small city, surrounded by water on three sides and boxed in by hills on the fourth, means that a forced concentration of designers and design studios naturally occurs. There are at least 14 industrial design studios within a 2 mile radius of my apartment. I’ve literally run into industrial designers I know just walking down the street.
I remember attending industrial design happy hours that used to happen once a month about a decade ago. The fact that our very niche industry could pack a bar on a random Thursday evening in a major metropolitan city is a testament to the density of ID here.
That density means there’s a strong feeling of community. Everybody in the ID sphere knows everybody else. People are willing to chat about their work and careers (in generalities within the bounds of NDA, of course), getting a job is easier once you’re in the community, and even though every single dot on the map above is technically a competitor against each other, there’s a general spirit of collective good and collaboration.
If you don’t live here or haven’t before, you probably think I sound no different than that smug New Yorker now.
Maybe I do. Maybe it’s gotten to my head.
Of course, there are other cities throughout the world that are capitals of design in different dimensions as well. Many I’ve never even been to.
But I really do think San Francisco, despite all it’s well-known and well-publicized problems, is a special place for industrial designers, and if you are one, you should come check it out.
At least come out for Design Week and drink free beer at all the open studios.
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