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Making it count
Carsten Astheimer was brave enough to establish his own design consultancy at the height of the
financial crisis – here Alistair Welch finds out how the business has since gone from strength to strength
H
aving studied transportation design at the
Arts Center Pasadena and subsequently
spent a year at the Volkswagen design
studio in Simi Valley before running a Pininfarina
studio in Turin for over ten years, Carsten
Astheimer could have been forgiven if he
experienced something of a culture shock when
he wound up in the West Midlands town of
Kidderminster at the break of the financial crisis.
With his background in the high-end Italian
automotive and product design world, Astheimer
was head-hunted by the Brunswick Boat Group
(the world’s largest manufacturer of pleasure
boats) to be the company’s global design
director. Astheimer was temporarily based in
Kidderminster at Brunswick’s UK affiliate Sealine
preparing to move to a new studio in Florida.
However, when the 2008 credit crunch struck,
the bottom (or should that be the hull?) fell out
of the boat market and Astheimer was made
redundant.
The designer found himself at a crux in his
career. “My family had just welcomed a fourth
child and having moved from Italy we were
meant to be moving over to Florida,” he explains.
“Instead we found ourselves in the Midlands
wondering what to do.”
Astheimer decided to establish his own design
consultancy, the eponymous Astheimer. He
explains that despite the boat industry being
relatively flat through 2009, the consultancy was
able to pick up a couple of projects in the sector
in order to get up and running.
Astheimer describes those early days of the
business as a “fight for survival”. However,
perseverance and high quality design work
ensured that the consultancy was able to expand
its client base and was soon winning projects
across a wide range of sectors. “It became
clear that we wanted to work in a diversity of
sectors,” comments founder and creative director
Astheimer. “It’s what we are very suited to as a
business and, from an economic point of view,
different sectors have different cycles so having a
variety balances out workload and cashflow.”
Move forward to 2016 and from its
Warwickshire studio the consultancy has created
over 300 successful projects for a host of clients,
both global companies and emerging brands.
Building on its founder’s particular background in
car and yacht design, Astheimer offers particular
expertise in automotive and marine design as
well as specialism in the furniture, high-tech, and
FMCG fields. Despite the scale and scope of the
business’ portfolio of clients, Astheimer describes
the consultancy as a “boutique design studio” and
is proud of the personalized service his expert
team of designers endeavour to offer clients.
Regardless of whether they are dealing with
a 100 foot yacht or a piece of FMCG packaging,
Astheimer designers aim to bring the same
fundamental process to any given project. This
begins with a rigorous programme of analysis –
Below | Carsten Astheimer, founder and
creative director of Astheimer
Below | Carsten Astheimer’s background is in
automotive and marine design and these sectors
provide the core to his consultancy’s business
consultancy consultancy
Regardless of whether they are
dealing with a 100 foot yacht
or a piece of FMCG packaging,
Astheimer designers aim to bring
the same fundamental process to
any given project

2. 28 newdesign issue122 newdesign issue122 29
understanding the client’s identity, their brand
and its values as well as how any potential project
might sit in the market in relation to competitors.
“The variety of the work we do gives us a fresh
eye approach to the projects we do and allows
us to cross-pollinate ideas and I think push
boundaries,” adds Astheimer.
According to Astheimer all of the company’s
designers take a great pleasure in working
with emerging brands or, as is the case in the
consultancy’s engagement with construction
equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, helping an
established brand to target a new product space.
Working on behalf of the consumer
electronics and mobile phone manufacturer
Bullitt Group, Astheimer were tasked with
developing a mobile device under the
Caterpillar (Cat) brand. Conceived with the
construction site worker in mind as the primary
market, the product was to establish a design
DNA for Cat in the mobile sector: phones that
were reliable, durable, and authentic.
“It was a fantastic project: we were creating
something from the ground up for a huge brand
that had never ventured into the mobile phone
market,” says Astheimer. “I spoke with Gary
Bryant, the design director at Caterpillar, to
understand the design principles of the brand.
Probably, what galvanized the key design elements
in my mind was walking around their factories.
Caterpillar products tend to be made from bent
metal, have an exoskeleton and be extremely
heavy duty. As such, I wanted metal to be a
key component of the phone. The whole form
language of the phone was very angular and there
was to be no plastic visible: only metal, rubber
and glass.”
The initial product to emerge from the
relationship with Bullitt and Cat, the CAT B15
– a hard-wearing Android smart phone, was a
phenomenal success in the market selling over
double the volumes forecasted. This has led
Astheimer to design further Cat branded phones
including the CAT S40, a higher-tier version of
the B15 that added capability and performance
whilst maintaining the ruggedness of the original,
and the CAT B100, an ultra-tough phone that can
be operated wearing gloves, offering reliability
and functionality in the most demanding work
environments.
“Our role as a design consultancy is putting
form to an idea and expressing brand values in a
form,” comments Astheimer. “I think that’s what
we are specialists at here: expressing through
aesthetics the values of a brand.”
Understanding how to craft a coherent design
language is as important in the design of chocolate
as a mobile phone. Working for the Mars brand
Galaxy, Astheimer have addressed the shape and
styling of the pieces of chocolate bars to ensure
that both the aesthetic and ‘in mouth’ experience
of the form match the creamy, smooth nature of
the product itself.
Focus group research revealed that whilst most
consumers say that they are not influenced by the
shape of a piece of chocolate, form does prove to
have an impact on an individual’s preference and
enjoyment. Testing a new shape for the chocolate
consultancy consultancy
Top | Astheimer has worked on several interiors from sports cars
and trucks to RV’s.
Bottom | CATB15, the first Cat mobile designed by Astheimer,
CATB100, the ultra-tough mobile phone
Below | Detail of the Bella collection’s teak and
aluminium composition

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developed by the consultancy,
Astheimer designers discovered that
consumers gravitated towards the
new shape (as opposed to the existing
design) and resoundingly believed that
the new design better represented the
brand.
It might seem unusual for a design
consultancy best-known for its work in
the marine and product sectors to work
on the design of a foodstuff. However,
Astheimer explains that it is this very
pedigree that impressed Mars. “Clients
have been attracted to us because we
have developed high-end boats, beautiful
pieces of furniture, and cars for Ferrari,”
he says. “The quality of our work draws
people in and they want a slice of that in
their chocolate, for example.”
The consultancy’s expertise in
yacht design – a sector in which Astheimer
can be responsible for a project from concept
to completion, involving everything from
CAD models of the vessel itself to the detail
of on-board fixtures and fittings – encouraged
the furniture manufacturer Gloster to invite
Astheimer to create an outdoor seating
collection.
The resulting design – the Bella range –
Astheimer classes as one of his favourite pieces
from recent years. Inspired in part by yacht
architecture and in part by English park benches
of the late 19th century, the Bella seats (an
armchair and bench) combine a powder coated
aluminium frame and curved laminate teak slats
to create a beautiful, sculptural seat that also
offers excellent comfort.
On the back of the award-winning success
of Bella, Astheimer has designed a second
outdoor furniture collection for Gloster: Vista.
Based around powder-coated aluminium, the
Vista collection is more straightforward to
manufacture than Bella and can be produced
in high volume with Gloster building around
10,000 units of the design per year to sell
around the world. “It’s a real money maker,”
adds Astheimer. “The product hit a sweet spot
in terms of value plus it’s a beautiful piece and
relatively simple to make.”
Considering the general health of the UK
design industry Astheimer argues it is “very
good, very professional, and very competitive.”
However, he does admit that he feels being
based outside of London means his consultancy
stands slightly beyond the mainstream of UK
design business. “The design community in and
around London can be very business focused
and most companies very vertically structured,”
he suggests. “Whilst some studios in London
are solely developing aeroplane interiors or
super yachts. We are really quite different in
that whilst we don’t bounce from one sector to
another we do intentionally work in a variety
of areas. I think this perhaps stems from my
Pininfarina days and my interest in different
areas: I love doing a piece for furniture as much
as a piece of technology.”
Astheimer explains that he is considering how
best to expand the business over the next five
years. The company recently invested in a new
studio and new facilities taking the consultancy,
in its founder’s words, from “a lifestyle business
to a real business.” Since the company has
been so successful in retaining its clients there
is no pressing urgency to pursue new business.
Nevertheless, Astheimer is keen that the
consultancy should reach its potential. “We don’t
want to be just doing good projects, but great
projects,” he says. “In the last financial year we
turned over £500,000; I would like to see that
double to £1,000,000 in three years.”
Whatever expansion takes place will not come
at the cost of the consultancy’s diverse and
personal design culture. “The easy route might be
to verticalize,” comments Astheimer. “But I want
to retain our variety. Of course, we will naturally
evolve as we grow, but how that evolution
happens depends on the market.”
Furthermore, Astheimer has launched two
start-up companies: Salt – a high-end furniture
brand targeting the super yacht and luxury
residential markets; and the British Design Shop –
an online furniture retailer offering a marketplace
for designers and design studios to offer low-run
furniture designs to the public.
Astheimer says that his passion for design is
driven by curiosity – a quality that he believes
is fundamental to any would-be design
professional. “The basic characteristic of a
designer is curiosity,” he argues. “A designer
then needs to develop professional skills – the
drawing skills that is our language of developing
a product and analytical skills. Lastly, a designer
needs the creativity aspect – like any artist, it is
about having something to say.” |
consultancy consultancy
Top | Bella armchair in construction
Bottom | Galaxy bar for Mars
Left | Bella armchair in construction
Below | Sketch work for the Bella collection