Engagement type: Original methodology development, competitive application Client: Brompton Bicycle Role: Applicant — Industrial Design Director
Brompton is one of the UK's most iconic product companies, known globally for the engineering precision and design intelligence of its folding bicycle. I developed this work as part of a competitive application for an Industrial Design Director role. The role was ultimately closed and redefined — but the methodology I created in the process stands on its own.
Brompton needed a structured approach to product and design decision-making that could scale across a growing industrial design department — one that connected vision, market intelligence, user understanding, and design execution into a single coherent framework, without losing the brand's identity in the process.
Rather than responding to the brief with a standard portfolio or strategy deck, I created an original problem-solving methodology called The Brompton Effect — using the bicycle itself as the structural metaphor.
The framework maps five stages of design and product thinking onto the components of the bike: The Main Frame (vision, mission, brand language), The Adjustable Frame (OKRs, cross-functional alignment, product strategy), The Wheels (market, competitors, trends), The Crankset (user understanding), The Finishes (differentiators and innovation), and The Ride (the completed product).
I then demonstrated the methodology in action — applying it to the challenge of defining Brompton's Product Visual Brand Language, showing how the framework could be used to structure any design or innovation problem the company faced.
The role was closed and the scope changed after the process concluded. The methodology remains one of the clearest expressions of how I think: that good design and product decisions require a structured system, not just good taste.
📄 The Brompton Effect — full methodology deck