News

For the first time, a new year rings in at Tactile without Jared Randall on the team. Bittersweet! Jared was Tactile’s #2 employee after Josh—two RISD graduates working side by side for more than a decade. Jared helped grow the team to where it is today and will always be part of our DNA. He’s moving on to spend more time with his young son and to pursue some long-desired personal projects, which we’re excitedly tracking. We will miss him so but wish Jared the very best. If you have any questions about the transition, please email or call us anytime.

From all of us at Tactile, thank you for making 2014 a year of growth and design adventure. We wish you all the best and look forward to working with you in 2015! (Image credit: devlin85 on flickr)

Tactile once again collaborated with the Xbox Industrial Design team on CMF for an exciting collection of game products: The Xbox One Limited Edition Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Bundle, the Xbox One Special Edition Armed Forces Wireless Controller and Headset, Midnight Forces Wireless Controllers, and the Xbox 360 Special Edition Blue Bundle. We’re gamers ourselves, so we loved finding meaningful graphic details—and getting creative with production processes—that we knew would excite hardcore Xbox fans.

We continue our design collaboration with Clarisonic (owned by L’Oreal) with the Smart Profile, a professional-grade sonic cleansing brush. Tactile worked with the engineering and marketing teams to amplify existing brand elements with upgraded materials and thoughtful interaction points.

A best-in-class product line deserves a strong visual language. We continued our local partnership with the Genie team, leveraging the passion and attention to detail of longtime Genie staff and loyal fans to understand the Genie brand story and bring it to life. Together, we designed a product line that feels reliable, intuitive, accessible, and safe.

Possibly the biggest Tactile Halloween on record. The costumes and merriment didn’t disappoint—so we’ll let the costumes speak for themselves. See our video slideshow, courtesy of the SnapBar. We’ll see you next year!

We’re excited to welcome Outhorn (pronounced “oo-tahn”) to Tactile to lead strategic business and partner development. He has a passion for technology and design, and he’s spent his career building relationships for a wide range of design, engineering and software consultancies. Outhorn is also a native Oregonian and a serious Seahawks fan; we think he’ll fit in just fine.

It’s that scary time of year again: Tactile’s annual Halloween bash is Saturday, October 25, at Hilliard’s in Ballard. The Seattle design community (and friends) will gather to celebrate the colorful, the creative and the downright weird. Interested in attending? Please email us for an invitation.

Tactile was pleased to take part in a special design effort for the Closing Party of the 2014 Seattle Design Festival. Herman Miller donated 10 Eames rocking chairs (fitting the Design in Motion theme of the festival) for local design firms to customize, then auctioned them off to benefit youth creative organization Sawhorse Revolution. The Tactile design team went for a classic mahatma dot pattern beloved by the Eames’, accented with a gold frame and dark-stained rockers. Our chair went home with the NBBJ Architecture crew—but perhaps we’ll reproduce one to decorate our studio…

The Convergence II event brought together designers, architects, students, entrepreneurs and more to discuss the widening needs of users and the challenges/opportunities in designing for them. Our four speakers—Martina Welke (Zealyst), Dominic Muren (The Humblefactory, UW, Alchematter.org), Dave Simon (Herman Miller), JoAnn Wilcox (Mahlum Architecture)—brought diverse experience to the question of where we must collaborate and how to bring the tools and disciplines together with intention. Thanks to everyone who attended and supported this great community discussion; we’ll see you at the next one!