I’m a strategic designer and product manager. My background is in product and service design, specialising in the intersection of digital and physical. As a product person, I am passionate about getting cross-functional teams to do their best work through agile practices, iterative development and design thinking.
In my work, I bring together business strategy, design sensibility and technology understanding and apply methods such as business model generation, user research, rapid prototyping and user experience design.
I co-authored the O'Reilly book ‘Designing Connected Products’, an overview and guide for user experience design for the (consumer) Internet of Things.
My experience goes across different areas of design: digital, industrial, research and even new media art and speculative design. I’m most comfortable in the strategic end of design and believe in the importance of iterative, experimental prototyping and real human insight to inspire and inform new ideas.
I started my career at frog design in Germany, working on a variety of projects across Industrial Design, Digital Design and Design Research. I hold a first class honours degree in Product Design from Ravensbourne, London and my speculative design work has been awarded by the Royal Society of Arts, of which I’m now a fellow (FRSA).
Before working at Fjord I’ve worked at cutting-edge art collective Random International, creating interactive art for clients like Bloomberg, Wellcome Trust and the V&A London. At Fjord I was involved in EU funded research into the Internet of Things, and worked in the business design team.
Projects
- Rain Cloud, 2017Raincloud was an exploratory project by Tom Metcalfe, Devraj Joshi and Martin Charlier, run between 2014 an 2017. Rain Cloud is a small connected cloud that tells you if it is going to rain soon near it’s current location, or a location you set it to. It communicates through simple light behaviour suggesting an imminent torrent, or just a potential dribble. The project is funded through some small public grants and was exhibited during London Design Festival 2016 at the ‘Good Home’ exhibition
- Duplex, 2011Duplex is made up of numerous fluorescent tubes salvaged from Bloomberg computer screens. The tubes’ capacity to display information is re-interpreted to reflect the silhouettes of those moving past. Originally created for Bloomberg’s 2011 ‘Waste Not , Want It’ exhibition, the work tracked the movements of those ascending and descending an escalator, presenting them with an illuminated representation of their own moving stance and gesture. Duplex reveals the potential of latent energy in banal m
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Work history
Head of Product & DesignUnmade
London, United KingdomFull Time
At Unmade, our mission is to bring fashion & sportswear value-chains into the 21st Century. In my role I work closely with all parts of the company as well as our customers to develop our product roadmap, shape the way we do product and design work, and do my bit in building a product that delivers on our vision of changing the industry.
Senior Product ManagerUnmade
- London, United KingdomFull Time
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Skills
- User Experience Design
- Design Strategy
- Information Design
- Strategic Design
- Concept Development
- Design Research
- Experience Design
- Curiosity
- User-centered Design
- User Scenarios
- Persona
Education
Product and Interaction DesignRavensbourne University London
- London, United Kingdom
Awards
Design Directions Award 2009/2010: Body and Mind
Design Directions Award 2009/2010: Body and Mind
Royal Society of Arts
May 2010
The project ImmuniToys explored trends of over-sanitation and a controversial hypothesis about sterile modern environments being the cause of immune system diseases ('civilisation illnesses').
From the RSA: The judging panel found Martin's use of design as a medium through which to ask questions that challenge some of the implications of cultural and social behaviours, one that showed courage and imagination. They liked the bold, confrontational nature of his approach and the manner in which he had identified a problem and taken a dark, yet striking approach to highlight its potential, ultimate conclusion.