Made

Growth through design and innovation

Innovative products, services and digital interfaces, that is what Made is all about, up there on the roof of their old factory building in Antwerp. Every day, business managers Simon de Smet and Timothy Macken and their team of design thinkers and researchers work on innovative solutions for both SMEs and multinational companies such as Bayer, Bringme, Coca-Cola, Ecover and Televic. The foundations for their success today were laid quite some time ago.

“I never dreamt of product development and entrepreneurship, but if I look back I can see how I ended up here”, reflects Simon, whose grandfather was an architect and who as a small boy often stood beside the drafting table and so learned at a young age to draw and create. And while Timothy initially planned to study architecture at Ghent, he ultimately wound up in Antwerp studying product development, and there he met Simon.

When Philips kept on asking the two friends back after their internship was over, they saw an opportunity to start something from the ground up. Made’s beginnings were like a storm, rock-‘n-roll and ambitious. They worked day and night to prove themselves. The result? A rapid growth in clients, mainly with a technological profile, for whom Made focused primarily on the design and development of physical products.

It was precisely in that area that Made has undergone major change in recent years. Because they were involved at an earlier stage of the thought process, the aim was not in the first instance to offer solutions, but above all to begin by asking the right questions. Questions from the perspective of the end user. Questions to which the answer wouldn’t ultimately lead to an innovative end product, but to a solution with a much better user experience and higher quality of life.

This evolution from a pure product development studio to a design and innovation studio seemed a natural step. Nowadays, their designs, concepts and projects take the user as their starting point. From there, they work on innovative products and services, but thanks to the digital revolution also increasingly on interfaces.

Their own working method lies at the basis of every solution they develop. So they begin first with thorough research before embarking on the quest for new ideas, and only after that do they begin to design. Clients value in particular their strength in involving all parties in the thought process, in order to achieve an innovative result that meets all the expectations of their client, the market and the end user. A powerful process that time and again helps their clients to grow.

Good collaboration is rewarded. Made has been fortunate in recent years to receive a number of national and international awards. “It was absolutely not a goal in itself, but always nice to have. They not only help increase self-confidence, but are also good for our clients, who trusted Made enough to come to us with their projects”, says Simon.

Made is not only able to generate innovative ideas but also effectively to translate those ideas into refreshing designs which they, together with the client, turn into production-ready products.

Despite their rapid growth, Made remains a solid, ambitious team that strives for new challenges. They look forward to the future and are enthusiastic about working with their clients to build it.

The observations from the workshop and from the interpreters’ experience provided Made with a wealth of insights that enabled them to design a disruptively innovative product that has since been rewarded with a prestigious iF Design Award. The fact that Televic’s interpreter desk is today the reference point on this market can be seen from the fact that it is now merrily being copied by the competition. Imitation is the sincerest compliment. This product received a Henry van de Velde Label 2015.