Eric Shank

Present

I helm our San Francisco office, where I use my background in Industrial Design and Product Development to connect our team of innovative problem-solvers with companies seeking impactful collaboration. There’s nothing I enjoy more than working in the front lines with a badass team in order to create great outcomes for clients and end users.

Past

Pratt Institute (ID), Hasbro (Designer), Wild Planet Toys (SVP Design & Development), Petzam (Founder)

Passion

Motorcycles. Current and past technologies with a soft spot for all things analog. Discovering the mechanisms and psychology behind how and why things work and using that knowledge to design novel products in unexpected ways.

Play

More motorcycles … whaleboat racing, scuba diving, pretzel-making, Limoncello-testing, and perfecting the mousetrap.

First memory of Design Thinking

When I was nine years old, I modified my 1970 Schwinn Sting-Ray Orange Krate bicycle. It was a great ride – extended sissy bar, fastback handlebars, five-speed “Stik-Shift” and metal flake banana seat – but something was missing. No matter how many of my Dad’s playing cards I clothes-pinned to the spokes, I just wasn’t happy with the volume of the “engine” sound. Many miles and iterations later, I successfully crafted a bitchin’ muffler contraption made of cardboard tubes, paper cups, rubber bands, and a well-placed stick.