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We are a Brisbane based, globally focused industrial design and innovation consultancy
What we do:
Design
Research
Strategy
Prototyping
Manufacturing
Covert
Creative
Collaborative
Clandestine Design Group (CDG) is a Brisbane based yet globally focused industrial design and innovation consultancy. We combine market reconnaissance, innovation strategy and new product development tactics to help our clients capture market share whilst winning the battle for the hearts of their customers.
Our mission is not to just help our clients win this battle, but their war to keep their business sustainable for the long term. We work collaboratively and covertly with our clients to research their market and understand their customer’s needs. We then use the power of design to develop new products and services that will generate value and disrupt their competitors.
Who we are:
Clandestine Design Group
Clandestine: While we’re approachable and collaborative, behind closed doors we keep it quiet. We take privacy, non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality seriously. We run a tight ship when it comes to IP, and our research methods are covert. Your secret is safe with us.
Design: We don’t just think outside the box, we work outside the box too. We are innately creative in our problem solving; using the latest tools, technologies, and processes available to deliver commercially focused next generation products, services, and experiences to market.
Group: We have over 20 years experience working with the best new business, new brand, new product R&D network support partners in the world. It is this group of group of like-minded, talented, purpose-driven design, engineering, IP protection, R&D, grants, and legal service support professionals that we work with on your projects.
Who are you?
We help clients of all shapes and sizes, from local sole traders to global Tier 1 businesses with employees based all over the world. CDG takes on all types of projects across all industries with the same level of interest and energy - from delivering large scale consumer products against a tough timeframes or budget, to helping a passionate entrepreneur convert an idea to an innovation, and then into commercially viable business.
First let’s find out who you are:
Corporate
I’m a major player who needs to disrupt the market.
The CDG team has decades of experience bringing large volume, high quality, category-creating and disruptive products to life, from global powerhouse success stories like Maxtrax to award winning designs for Next Level Racing.
Scaleup
I’m an established business that needs help with new product development.
We enjoy working every day with small businesses to build on their existing success. From evolving an existing product or service to building new product development and innovation roadmaps, we work with you to leverage your expertise and defend or expand your current market position.
Startup
I’m an entrepreneur with an innovative business concept, what now?
We know your product concept has come from a deeply personal place, and we know how to help you turn it into a world changing business. We know you’re new to this, and we’ve helped hundreds of startups successfully launch to market. We’re happy to business mentor you and manage your product development process. Our talented network group ensures you’ll have everything you need.
Inventor
I’m an inventor with an idea.
We’ve got you covered from lightbulb moment to reality, through our in house design and prototyping capabilities. We can help you validate and leverage the value of your idea into a commercial outcome - whether that be licensing for royalties or scaling into a new business.
We don’t just design great products, we help design great businesses.
We’re both focused experts but also broad thinkers and doers. We can get into the nitty gritty of your product, idea, or market opportunity, but we also see the whole and can help you turn your business into what you need it to be: a full time venture, a part time journey, or a scaleable and valuable asset.
We build upon the past.
We work in the present.
We enable your future.
Take comfort in knowing we’ve been there and done that. But we don’t rest on our laurels or dwell on the past. Our highly capable team builds upon experience, challenges norms and questions what’s possible on a daily basis. This gives us the ability to not just see a little further down the road than others, but to act upon it. We act as design educators on each an every design project, enabling your team to learn our process and design led methodologies, arming your company with design innovation skills for the future.
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The Clandestine Team
Clandestine Design Group was founded in 2014 by product designer and Design Director - Neil Davidson. Neil left his previous role as Creative Director of CMD Product Design and Innovation after 14 years to explore new opportunities in design and business.
In addition to leading the agile CDG team, Neil also works in a number of other self-funded ventures that stretch his design skills, hone his business nouse whilst keeping his design thinking and creative edge sharp to help CDG’s clients in their new product development and innovation programmes. To learn more about Neil’s background and other business ventures feel free to click through the Team page.
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Our clients are all shapes and sizes, from local sole traders to global Tier 1 businesses with employees based all over the world. CDG takes on all types of projects across all industries with the same level of interest and energy - from delivering large scale consumer products against a tough timeframes or budget, to helping a passionate entrepreneur convert a game changing idea to an innovation and then onto commercially viable business.
Our client’s ideas or insights for innovation are often formed by being a frustrated customer, identifying a gap in the market because a product isn’t meeting your needs or from the certainty that there must be a better or safer way to do your job. Your experience and expertise are an essential part of the design process that CDG leads you through, to assist you to develop the best design outcome and new market offering.
Although we enjoy working every day with small businesses to build on their existing success using our services, our designers are just as comfortable assisting large organisations. We are well versed at meeting your businesses specific requirements, whether it’s developing customer engagement programmes, facilitating innovation workshops, building a new product development and innovation roadmaps or simply assessing off tool product samples for you in Asia; we have you collaboratively covered.
Regardless of the size of the business CDG works with clients in the same way, without disrupting your business we covertly endeavour to understand the culture of your business, your point of difference and your purpose. Then using creativity and collaboration we build mutual respect and develop our relationship. This relationship makes it easier to work together, to keep communication clear and open between the businesses allowing us to achieve the great things together.
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CDG’s skills and services cover all aspects of the strategic to tactical innovation and new product development process. Some client projects engage skills and services sequentially as part of the engagement model where others pick what is required when they need them. The following list of skills and services have been grouped relative to the three phase CDG engagement model:
Reconnaissance Phase – Qualitative Market, Business and Customer Needs Research:Business Model Review / Purpose, Practice and Promise Workshops / B2E, B2B, Stakeholder and Customer Engagement Programme Development / Ethnographic Studies / First Person Interviews and /Observational Research Studies / Customer Diaries and Photo Journals / Focus and Co-Creation Group Facilitation / Foresight Studies – Future Social, Cultural, Technology Trends Analysis / Hindsight Studies – Past Social, Cultural, Technology Trends Analysis / Persona Mapping / Customer Journey Mapping / Service Model Design / Synthesis and Insights Presentations
Strategy Phase – Innovation Modelling / Translation of Insights to Innovation Strategies / Innovation Strategy Low Fidelity Prototyping or Prototyping / Scenario Planning and Narrative Walk Throughs / Innovation Strategy Horizon Mapping / Innovation Strategy Business Case Assessment / Innovation Portfolio Development / NPD Pipe Line Development / Innovation Strategy Product and Business Concepts / Tactical Development Briefs
Tactical Phase – Product Design, Engineering and Manufacture / Industrial Design / Competitor and Market Research / Product Visual Brand Language Development / Colour Material Finish Trends Studies / Product Lifecycle Mapping / Technical Requirements Specification Development / Analogue Hand Sketch Concept Development / Digital Sketch Concept Development / 3D CAD Models / Photorealistic Renderings and Animations / Design for Mass Manufacture Engineering / User Experience Design UX / User Interface Design UI / 3D Printing Rapid Prototyping / CNC Machined Prototyping / Batch Beta Trial Production / Mass Production Processes and Tooling Management / Asian Manufacturing Supply Chain Management / Point of Sale and Structural Packaging / Exhibition and Tradeshow Display Design / Impact Assessment - Post Production and Commercialisation Review -
Design Thinking, Design Led, and Design Integrated are terms used to describe the world’s most innovative and profitable businesses. Often our media highlights the large design led organisations however there is actually no corporate size requirements for a business to be design centric.
In today’s market it is common to see a Start-Ups or SMEs embrace design and radically disrupt a major and mature global competitor.
Despite the technical jargon that drowns the design and innovation industry we must remember that design is a human centric problem solving approach. So when a company is considered design led it really means they have put humans, their people, stakeholders, customers and end users at the centre of their business. They use design processes and thinking to solve problems that deliver real meaning, real innovation and real value to the market.
So if you are unsure where to start…start by using design! Get in contact, drop us an email or give us a call. Put yourself at the centre of the problem for a while and see how we can help you or your organisation.