STEL has evolved greatly over the past five years. The team has grown, our skill set has widened, we’ve moved into a bigger office, and we’ve adopted new technology to expand our capabilities. Throughout all of this growth and development, one thing has remained the same—STEL’s commitment to its guiding pillars of deliberate design, sustainable engineering, and meaningful relationships. It’s these pillars that lay the foundation of every project we take on, and at the core of how and why we do what we do.
01
Quality Over Quantity
Prioritization of depth over breadth has always been a guiding principle for STEL’s
practice. When we take on a project, we don’t just see the product at the end of the
development process, we see every step leading up to it, every person involved, every
opportunity that could come about from it.
Above all, we pursue projects with purpose.
Our team focuses our talents on completing perfectly-executed, innovative designs
rather than spreading its strengths to churn out conventional products that saturate the market. When STEL sets out to create, we do so with the intent to bring a one-of-a-kind design to life. Our industrial designers and engineers are constantly collaborating to push the boundaries of function without compromising form to create products that will make an impact.
02
Partnership Beyond the Project
At STEL, we look at more than a proposal when selecting our portfolio of projects; we
look to the future of a partnership. Our directors carefully examine a company’s core
principles, start-up mentality, commitment to a mission, and enthusiasm for sustainable design when evaluating potential partners. We take our time to carefully curate internal and external connections with clients to ensure commitment and professional fit that can extend beyond a first project. These well-developed, purposeful relationships enable both STEL and our partners to call on each other for future projects and endeavors.
Many of these partnerships have grown into friendships outside the office as well; it is
not uncommon to see team members of STEL and collaborating companies bombing
down a bike trail or tackling local climbing routes in a race against sunset after work.
03
Behind Every Great Product is a Great Story
A successful product is more than just a well-executed design, it’s a labor of love.
Behind every idea that STEL brings to life is a story, written by a passionate team,
which we use to craft a product’s brand. It’s that team’s passion that drives a product’s
story forward, and is at the base of our partner’s brands, which gives them a competitive edge as they take on larger companies.
Our team carefully constructs marketing plans tailored for a well-researched target audience, to amplify a brand’s voice to be heard over the hum of a saturated market. We strive to lay the foundation for our partners and their brands so they may grow around the products they have designed. STEL’s understanding of every facet of the production process, from renders to marketing, enable us to provide end-to-end services for a successful product development through to its launch.
04
Real Recognizes Real
It is no coincidence that STEL’s clientele consists of passionate, purposeful partners.
Like attracts like in this regard as our team’s industrial designers and engineers bring
their own passion for invention into the office every day. We make sure our clients are
always involved with every step of the product development process to maintain a
constant state of collaborative creativity and to ultimately ensure expectations are
exceeded.
The STEL team is driven by a genuine love for creation, not just the bottom line, as we
seek to create products for companies with a purpose. It is our commitment to the core principles of ethical engineering and honest design that companies are proud to be a part of.
05
Looking at the Big Picture
STEL’s dedication to sustainability extends beyond our partnership with 1% For The
Planet and our incessant pursuit of adventure after work. With every product born in
our studio, we design with the absolute end in mind; each step of our design process is conservation-focused to culminate in incredibly sustainable final products. Our library of recyclable, plant-based, and non-toxic materials allows us to create products with minimal environmental impact well beyond their lifetime. To improve the sustainability of production both in our own studio and with our clients, we utilize materials, manufacturers, and design methods that are environmentally conscious. In doing so, STEL has procured a toolbox of sustainable resources that is readily available for use by our in-house designers.
An ongoing dedication to ethical production and commitment to sustainable design have played a crucial role in our success as a firm, and truly reflect our passion as people. We are pulling inspiration for our product design from the world around us everyday, so we have to keep protecting that world top of mind always. These guiding pillars have served us well as our final products reflect the integrity and innovation of the STEL team.
01
Where We Started
Over the last five transformative years, STEL has grown from humble beginnings into a Santa Barbara hub for innovative design. What started as an idea between creatives in an IHOP booth quickly took life in June of 2015. We opened our first design studio connected to a manufacturing shop with just enough space to bring our first projects to life.
Our initial team of 5 creatives started designing and prototyping products for some of our first partners, who we still are partnered and consistently working with today. Our portfolio started to expand, and as we started to take on more and more clients with an exciting and diverse array of products that needed developing, we began to grow our team to meet those needs.
02
Our Growing Team
What began as a dream of two passionate engineers has grown into a team of 20+ creatives since 2015. Our team of highly skilled industrial designers, engineers, graphic designers, copy writers, and project managers have had the opportunity to collaborate with local and global clients, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, to successfully deliver over 300 products to market.
With every addition to the STEL family, our collaborative design process becomes more precise, creative, and innovative, ultimately allowing us to develop top of the line products for our clients. And the best part? Our team will only continue to get better as we work together on more difficult projects, refine our skill sets, and solve whatever problem is put in front of us.
03
Scaling Up and Moving Out
As our team and set of skills expanded, we quickly outgrew our last office both in size and in ability to execute cutting edge products. Today, we’re proud to have moved to a beautiful new office space to accommodate everything we’ve grown.
Iterative product design is more efficient and creative than ever with our 3D printing lab, engineering workshop, ample prototyping space, and plotter printing capabilities, as well as a showcase to display some of our favorite prototypes to date. For accommodating our supply chain as well as our in house startup, a full portion of the office is dedicated to mail fulfillment to increase efficiency. To support our company growth, creative collaboration, and team well being, we’ve expanded into a private conference room, several meeting spaces, a breakroom, and an open office layout in the center of it all. To see what our office was in 2015, to where it is now, and looking to what it can be in the future, our growth as a firm has manifested physically in the space we work in as we continue to build an environment where design can thrive.
04
Our Extended Family
Our success as a growing business did not happen overnight, nor did we do it alone. With only 44% of businesses successfully passing the 5 year mark, we owe a huge thank you to our partners for helping us in our growth and success as a design firm since 2015. The teams we’ve been fortunate to partner with, both down the street in Santa Barbara, or across the world, have been an integral part to not only our growth as a firm but our growth as designers and innovators.
Our firm is upheld by pillars of design and grounded in collaboration with others, recognizing the invaluable asset of teamwork. Because we strive to partner with businesses that share our same values of bringing mission-driven designs to market by merging form with function, nearly 90% of our client base return to work with STEL on additional projects. Not only do our partnerships frequently extend beyond a single project, our clients continue to recommend our services to their professional networks and friends as well. The partnerships we have developed are more than just business relationships, they have become a crucial building block in the foundation of our firm.
We Couldn’t Have Done it Without You
Thank you for our first five years, and here’s to our next five and beyond. We truly could not be the firm we are today without your support, and can’t wait to see what the future of design at STEL holds.