Design Partners

What Design Partners does

Design Partners is a product design and innovation agency founded in 1984 and headquartered in Bray, Ireland. The firm operates as a B2B professional services studio of product designers, expert engineers, and innovators, delivering design strategy, industrial design, UX/UI design, mechanical/electro-mechanical/electronic engineering, service design, human factors engineering, wearables design, and healthcare design to enterprise clients. It maintains a custom-built wearables lab for smart garment development and holds ISO-13485 certification for its healthcare design team. A PhD-led sustainability practice targets enterprise sustainability transformation, and the firm has served clients including Logitech, Honeywell, Beyerdynamic, Cricut, Jameson, HealthBeacon, Cumulus, Viscero, Cosmed, and Danu Sports across consumer technology, medical devices, wearables, industrial, and consumer goods sectors.

Design Partners generates revenue through project-based professional services engagements and likely retainer arrangements with major brands; pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed. Its 11-50 employee team, based at its Bray headquarters in IDA Business Park, delivers category-defining products and has accumulated several hundred design awards over four decades, including 100+ awards in the past five years. The firm claims over two billion people have interacted with products it has designed, with recognition spanning Red Dot Best of the Best, iF Design Awards, IDEA, Good Design Chicago, CES Best of Innovation, MoMA exhibition, and inclusion in Time and Fast Company.

In 2024, Design Partners joined PA Consulting as a wholly-owned subsidiary, integrating its design and engineering expertise with PA's broader capabilities across science, research, and strategy. The legal entity is PA Knowledge Limited, and Design Partners operates under the PA Consulting umbrella while retaining its brand identity. Career recruitment is conducted through PA Consulting's careers portal, and the firm continues to position itself as an end-to-end design and innovation partner delivering from insight to implementation.

Name

Design Partners

Legal name

PA Knowledge Limited

Website

https://designpartners.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1984

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Industrial Design Services

NAICS

Industrial Design Services (54142), Graphic Design Services (541430)

SIC

Services-Engineering Services (8711), Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Industrial/Product & Furniture Design (BPAHAKAM)

akta.pro secondary industry

Digital Creative & Experience Design Agencies (Web/App/UX) (MPAAAAAD)

Keywords

• Product design services
• Industrial design
• Engineering consulting
• Wearables design
• Medical device design

Headquarters

HQ city

Bray

HQ country

Ireland

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Professional Design & Engineering Services: Project-based professional services revenue from providing design strategy, industrial design, UX/UI, engineering, service design, and related consulting services to enterprise clients. Engagement models appear to be project-based or retainer arrangements with major brands.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Design Partners is a product design and innovation agency providing end-to-end design and engineering services — including Research & Strategy, Industrial Design, Engineering (mechanical, electro-mechanical, electronic), Service Design, UX/UI Design, Wearables Design, Human Factors Engineering, Healthcare Design, and Design for Sustainability — to enterprise clients seeking category-defining products. Engagements are project-based and delivered through a multi-disciplinary studio in Bray, Ireland, now operating as part of PA Consulting.

Product overview

Design Partners is a product design and innovation agency that functions as a single unified service offering rather than a platform-plus-modules architecture. Their portfolio spans multiple service capabilities including Research & Strategy, Design for Sustainability (led by PhD experts), Industrial Design, Engineering (mechanical, electro-mechanical, and electronic), Service Design, UX/UI Design, Wearables Design (in a custom-built wearables lab), Human Factors Engineering, and Healthcare Design (ISO-13485 certified). The agency has delivered landmark products across diverse categories including computer peripherals (Logitech MX Vertical), audio equipment (Beyerdynamic), medical devices (Cumulus EEG Headset, Viscero ECG Vest, HealthBeacon), smart wearables (Danu Sports), industrial safety (Honeywell Gas Detectors), consumer goods (Jameson Glassware, Cricut Mug Press), and healthcare technology (Cosmed). The company is part of PA Consulting and has won hundreds of design awards with over two billion people having used their designs.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Research & Strategy Strategy consulting service helping enterprise clients answer questions about future customer needs and desires, accelerate sustainability goals, and forecast market change over a 5–8 year horizon. Identifies growth areas, foresees change, and unlocks new experiences.
• Design for Sustainability PhD-led sustainability design service collaborating with clients to deliver real impact and challenge conventional approaches to arrive at ground-breaking solutions for more sustainable products and services.
• Industrial Design Design and engineering of category-leading physical products that are insight-led and user-focused, delivering highly-crafted and meaningful products to fruition for enterprise clients.
• Engineering Engineering service addressing mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic challenges to invent new technology and deliver manufacturable solutions for clients.
• Service Design Service design service helping clients transform end-to-end customer experiences and adopt service-based business models in a holistic, human-centred and harmonious way.
• UX/UI Design UX/UI design service delivering effortless solutions from desktop and mobile apps to Machine User Interfaces to fully integrated systems, solving complex problems for future needs.
• Wearables Design Wearables design service delivered through a custom-built wearables lab that fuses expertise in soft goods, UX, engineering and design to develop smart garments and wearable technology with the user at the center.
• Human Factors Engineering Human Factors Engineering service combining HFE rigor with design creativity and engineering excellence to build strategic advantage, reduce costs, or ensure regulatory compliance.
• Healthcare Design ISO-13485 certified healthcare design service specialising in medical device and healthcare technology design to advance patient care and improve treatment outcomes through empowering and empathic design.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 2 billion people have put their hands on their designs
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• PA ConsultingcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDesign Partners has joined PA Consulting, marking 'the next part of our journey'. This integration brings Design Partners' design and innovation expertise together with PA Consulting's broader capabilities across design, engineering, science, research, and strategy. The partnership enables Design Partners to deliver impact on a larger scale for clients, from insight to implementation. Design Partners becomes part of PA Consulting's global network while maintaining their brand identity.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Ammunition Group: Ammunition is an award-winning product design and brand strategy firm working with consumer electronics, audio, and lifestyle brands — comparable to Design Partners' consumer-tech (Logitech/Beyerdynamic/Cricut) work and premium positioning.
• Smart Design: Smart Design is a strategic design consultancy with an integrated industrial design, UX, and engineering practice serving global brands — comparable mix of enterprise consumer-product work and cross-disciplinary capabilities.
• Bresslergroup: Bresslergroup is a product development firm combining industrial design, mechanical/electrical engineering, and human factors for medical, industrial, and consumer products — closely overlaps Design Partners' medical, wearables, and consumer-tech practices.
• IDEO: IDEO is the prototypical global design and innovation consultancy offering research, industrial design, UX, and strategy to enterprise clients — closely comparable to Design Partners' full-service model and marquee-client orientation.
• Pensar Development: Pensar is a product development and embedded engineering consultancy delivering IoT, wearables, and connected-device design and engineering — comparable in wearables depth and full-stack hardware product development.
• Frog Design (Capgemini Invent): Frog is a product design and innovation firm (now part of Capgemini Invent) serving similar enterprise customers across consumer, healthcare, and industrial segments — directly mirrors Design Partners' positioning and its integration into a larger consultancy (PA Consulting).
• Lunar Design: Lunar is a European product design and innovation firm (Denmark) offering strategy, industrial design, and engineering across consumer, healthcare, and industrial clients — comparable European-rooted, enterprise-focused design services footprint.
• Whipsaw: Whipsaw is an award-winning industrial design and engineering firm delivering concept-to-production hardware design for enterprise brands — direct peer in industrial design, mechanical engineering, and consumer-electronics category work.
• Cambridge Consultants (Capgemini Invent): Cambridge Consultants is a deep-technology product development and engineering consultancy with strong medical-device and wireless/wearables practices — directly comparable regulated-device and connected-product capability mix.

Emerging players

• StarFish Medical: StarFish Medical is a specialist medical device design and engineering firm — comparable in regulated medical-device design, but narrower in vertical scope than Design Partners' horizontal multi-industry practice.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/design_partners

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Design Partners