People and business – a visit to Eggs Design

Eggs Design was founded in 2012 as a merge between the Trondheim based product design consultancy Kadabra and the Oslo based digital design company Oslo D. The motivation for the merge was a wish to do design in a more holistic way, Bilal Chaudhry explains. After welcoming us in the hall, he gives us a guided tour in the company’s headquarter in Kvadraturen, before giving us a presentation of the company's work and methodology. Even though he is educated as industrial designer, Bilal currently spend most of his time on digital design projects. That the designers work crisscross to gain insight into each other’s fields is an important part of Eggs’ philosophy.

Today Eggs has 50 employees in total, in offices in Oslo, Trondheim, Stavanger and Curitiba, Brazil. The company focuses on the areas of product design, digital design, service design and technology, and operates mainly within the market segments ocean technology, health, infrastructure, consumer goods, bank and finance. Testing is an essential part of the design process in projects within all these areas, Bilal explains. In addition to 3D printing and simulators, the office is currently building a room resembling the bridge of a ship’ for use in their ocean technology projects. Their work for clients in this latter category also entails investigating future scenarios, produced by today’s technology.

Involving the end user in the design process is also a key feature of the way Eggs work. An example is a project the company did for Oslo Airport (OSL), where the aim was to chart and improve the traveler’s experience of the airport. Problems, or areas with room for improvement, were identified by ‘shadowing’ users, that is following their movements around the airport, and interviews. Of the concrete results were accommodated areas for breastfeeding and separate ‘family counters’ in the security check.

People and business – these are presented as the two ‘lighthouses’ that guides Eggs’ design approach. The focus on people and the inclusion of the end user in the design process is visible in many of Eggs’ projects. Both the Katrin Inclusive Dispenser range of towel and soap dispensers and a range of butter packaging for Tine are developed with people with special needs in mind. Along with the above mentioned project for OSL they may also be characterized as co-design or participatory design. There is no doubt however, that Eggs’ other lighthouse, business, illuminates at least equally strong. And with a broad circle of well-known clients, Eggs has positioned themselves as an important actor in Norwegian design industry.