Today we’d like to introduce you to Igor Chak.
Igor, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in a far Eastern part of Russia in a city of Vladivostok, at the age of 5 my family moved to the heart of Tokyo, near Shibuya. My fascination with design and technology began there. I can proudly say that at the age of 7 I knew what I wanted to do for life and that is to be an innovator. I was really in to clay modeling and got noticed by some studios in Japan to have my work on display, I was 8 at the time. Then we moved to the US, as a teen I constantly took products apart to see how they worked, that fascination grew in to modifying those products to work better.
Although half of the products that I modified stopped working after a while, I still knew that I enjoyed innovating. Going to school to get a degree in Industrial Design I stated to understanding the aesthetics of the design, as I was more inclined in to the mechanical engineering part of the process I have started to understand how design and engineering go together. This skill of understanding the process from A-Z gave me a huge advantage when I got out of school to start working in the field of Industrial Design. Creating a product is a skill that you are constantly trying to improve, you learn new techniques, new trades, new skills to achieve the unteachable.
After years of working for various companies and studios, I wanted to branch out in to trying to make it on my own. I knew I had the skill for design, now I had to learn the skill of running a business, how to promote yourself as a designer and how to directly work with clients. I believe technology will someday overtake the role of the designer as it is slightly doing it to the engineering jobs. AI is getting smarter and more efficient in designing specific, complex mechanical parts. Something that would take an engineer 2 weeks to do, takes an AI to do it in seconds. As design is expanding in to technology, I have started to expand in to writing custom code and use skills that I have never thought I would even touch in to creating something more efficient and technologically advanced.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a smooth road for me, ok, I’m lying, it’s never a smooth road and you have to be prepared for it all the time. Clients change their minds, change their vision on what they want, your vendor messes something up but I do not look at these things as a struggle, those are challenges that are very welcomed because the harder the path the better prepared you are in the long way, you just have to learn how to deal with those things and no matter what, do not panic!
Please tell us about Chak Design.
I started out on my own when I was looking at a Space Invaders game and saw one of the pixelated aliens as a couch, trust me, I just randomly see things like that. I made a concept, put it out on a design blog, couple of days later look at my inbox and see hundreds of letters of people wanting to buy this couch. Turns out some very big blogs picked this up and published it. I knew I had to make this thing, I was 23, knew nothing about furniture manufacturing or even how to run a business. It was a challenge and 4 month later I was selling these couches to gamer fans to big gaming companies. I started designing more custom gamer furniture, getting more media exposure, being mentioned in design books, so It was an honor for me.
This was my first experience in running a small business. Later on, I understood that I have a unique style that people liked and got in to design consulting and contracting. As work load increased I started to hire out contract designers and engineers, graphic designers, coders and etc. I wanted to offer every aspect of putting a product in to market to my clients.
What sets me apart from others is that I do not work like other design studios, design has become very mainstream, and we started to lose that special connection with the client and their vision, it started to be more automated with no passion behind it. I remember I was working for a design studio in LA and we were meeting with a client. I could see how excited the client was to bring this product to market and was so passionate about it. My design lead was just sitting there with no facial expression and had a very calm look on his face, After the client was done with their presentation my design lead just sat there, looked at the client and said, sure, this looks simple enough, we can design and engineer this for you. The client looked at my design lead and asked them, aren’t you excited about this? My leads answer was, this is work, we deal with design all the time, it’s technical…
This is where I understood that this is not how we should approach design, each project, doesn’t matter if it’s a cup or a phone case should be taken with a challenge, how can I use my experience to design the best cup the world has ever seen, and even I f I don’t I will pour my soul and passion in to it.
We are not a 9-5 design studio, we are a how can we design the best experience for our clients type of studio.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Growing up in Tokyo, being surrounded by skyscrapers, neon signs, concrete and millions of people rushing their way through life. I was too little to understand everything that was going on but I felt like I was part of that city, riding my bicycle through narrow concrete streets… and for some reason with all the insanity, rush and noise that was going on it felt very balanced, very peaceful to me.
Contact Info:
- Website: igorchak.com
- Phone: 323-384-7306
- Email: [email protected]
Image Credit:
Chak Design
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