SOM, previously Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John O. Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.
IDEO is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 500 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environments, brands, and digital experiences.
Landor is a brand consulting firm founded in 1941 by Walter Landor, who pioneered some research, design, and consulting methods that the branding industry still uses.
McKinsey & Company is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey, McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "MBB" management consultancies (MBB). The firm mainly focuses on the finances and operations of their clients.
Arup is a British multinational professional services firm headquartered in London that provides design, engineering, architecture, planning, and advisory services across every aspect of the built environment. It employs about 17,000 people in over 90 offices across 35 countries, and has participated in projects in over 160 countries.
William Grant Moggridge, RDI was an English designer, author and educator who cofounded the design company IDEO and was director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. He was a pioneer in adopting a human-centred approach in design, and championed interaction design as a mainstream design discipline. Among his achievements, he designed the first laptop computer, the GRiD Compass, was honoured for Lifetime Achievement from the National Design Awards, and given the Prince Philip Designers Prize. He was quoted as saying, "If there is a simple, easy principle that binds everything I have done together, it is my interest in people and their relationship to things."
Kearney is an American global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Kearney's predecessor firm was founded in Chicago by James O. McKinsey in 1926; he hired Andrew Thomas "Tom" Kearney as his first partner in 1929. After James McKinsey died in 1937, the Chicago office split into its own company, led by Tom Kearney and called McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, and Company. In 1947, it was renamed A.T. Kearney and Company.
Pilotfish is a multidisciplinary design and innovation consultancy with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Taipei. The company is specialized in industrial design, user interface design, and mechanical engineering. The company covers the entire product development process from research and strategy to ideation, design, engineering, sourcing, tooling, and production.
HOK, formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, is an American design, architecture, engineering, and urban planning firm. Founded in 1955, it is now registered as HOK Group, Inc.
The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an award program previously co-sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine, and in 2010 Fast Company magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). According to the IDSA, IDEA "is dedicated to fostering business and public understanding of the importance of industrial design excellence to the quality of life and economy". Every year, designers and corporations submit entries into the competition in many categories. The program was established in 1980. The IDEA winners are honored at annual ceremonies and awarded with a statue made by New York firm, Society Awards. The name was changed from Industrial Design Excellence Awards to International Design Excellence Awards in 2007.
frog is a global creative and design consultancy founded in 1969 by industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger in Mutlangen, Germany, where it was initially named “esslinger design”. Soon after the company moved to Altensteig, Germany, and then opened a new studio in Palo Alto, California, and ultimately to its current headquarters in San Francisco, California. The company has studios in North and Central America, Europe, and Asia.
HNTB Corporation is an American infrastructure design firm. Founded in 1914 in Kansas City, Missouri, HNTB began with the partnership made by Ernest Emmanuel Howard with the firm Waddell & Harrington, founded in 1907.
TYLin is a global, multi-disciplinary infrastructure services firm. Headquartered in San Francisco, TYLin established its business in the design of long-span bridges and specialty structures.
Gensler is a global design and architecture firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. It is the largest architecture firm in the world by revenue and number of architects.
Yves Béhar is a Swiss-born American designer, entrepreneur, and educator. He is the founder and principal designer of Fuseproject, an industrial design and brand development firm. Béhar is also the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of August Smart Lock, a smart lock company acquired by Assa Abloy in 2017; and co-founder of Canopy, a co-working space based in San Francisco.
Mark Dziersk was an American industrial designer based in Chicago, Illinois.
Veryday was a Swedish industrial design consultancy, headquartered in the Bromma area of Stockholm, with additional studios in New York City, Singapore, Dubai, and London. It was formally named Ergonomi Design Gruppen and often referred to as Ergonomidesign; in 2012 the firm adopted the name Veryday. In November 2016, Veryday became part of McKinsey & Company, and today operates under the name "McKinsey Design." In 2024 McKinsey & Co announced that they are closing down the Veryday studio.
West Monroe is a digital services firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. West Monroe provides traditional management consulting, creative and product engineering services to businesses across many industries, including consumer and industrial products, energy and utilities, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, private equity, retail, and software and high tech. West Monroe is consistently recognized as a best place to work and a top consulting firm. West Monroe’s tagline is "Don’t Do Digital. Be Digital."
Idea Couture, Inc. was a global strategic innovation and experience design firm founded in 2007 and was based in San Francisco and Toronto. The company had additional offices in London, Mexico, Shanghai and São Paulo while operating globally.
Reach is an American brand of oral hygiene products, including toothbrushes, dental floss, and mouthwash. The brand originated from Reach toothbrushes developed by DuPont in 1976.
