Photo by Courtesy Thomas Meyerhoffer
By Raan Parton & Luke Warner
Six months ago a mutual friend introduced us to Thomas Meyerhoffer, a name we knew well from the Apple design community. After recently having him by our office in Los Angeles his Scandinavian charm and perspective on doing things well and connecting people with his products really stood out to us. We are privileged to call him a friend, a mentor and perhaps a potential partner for endeavors down the road.
In 1965, Thomas Meyerhoffer was born (like so many great innovators) in Stockholm, Sweden. He grew up in both his hometown and further south in Lund before starting university and pursuing his global dreams. Meyerhoffer gradually left Sweden after being accepted to London’s prestigious St. Martin’s Art School to study graphics and design. While he was in London he committed himself to a future in product design which lead him to study at Switzerland’s Art Center Europe with a cadre of young designers who have all, like Meyerhoffer, evolved to be some of the most noted designers of the last ten years. During his time at Art Center, he spent two semesters abroad at the Pasadena campus, where he frequently drove his 1968 two door Lincoln Continental to surf Malibu.
He returned to Europe after a year to graduate from the Art Center and took an internship at Style Porsche in Germany. During a tour, one of Meyerhoffer’s designs for an uncommonly simply door panel caught the eye of Mr. Porsche who invited him to join his team at the original Porsche design shop.
After a while, disenchanted with the prospect of life in Germany’s Black Forest, he took a job with IDEO in San Francisco to work with Tim Brown, Naoto Fukasawa & Chris Stringer. As tech began to boom, Meyerhoffer’s team experimented heavily with moving computers away from the so-called “beige box” design that most of us grew up with. In the mid 90s, he was asked to join Jonathan Ive’s reinvented design group at Apple where he worked with Steve Jobs and Ive as a senior designer, creating the Emate, the world’s first translucent computer and precursor to the iBook.
Ten years ago, Meyerhoffer set up his own studio where he does strategic design projects to innovate both products and user experience. He works on large projects and loves to work with start-ups, like the founders of the Chumby soft computer (pictured below), who allow him to help shape their story through the design of their products.
After a long history of surfing both long and shortboards, his years of product design began to truly inspire his riding culminating in a passion and commitment to shaping and designing boards based on his own riding experience. As a fabricator committed to both technical design and a rich, interactive user experience, it was a natural evolution from surfer to shaper. The central cutaways, hull-shaped rail transitions and the smooth shape make for an easy pivot and soft turns without compromising speed. He starts each design on a seemingly non-experiential computer but is quick to note that even when he makes a tiny technical tweak on a rail, he can feel the dynamics change in his gut.
It is this holistic commitment to his craft and the things he loves that makes him such an inspiring person to know. We’re looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.
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