This was a concept design brief for a sleek, friendly humanoid robot built to interact with humans in everyday environments. I was responsible for the full concept design of the robot head: from competitive research and proportion exploration to the final direction with manufacturing logic included.

The brief asked for something that felt warm, trustworthy, and non-threatening, without falling into either of the two traps most robot head designs fall into: too abstract and cold, or too human and unsettling.

I started with competitive research to map the failure modes in the category, then moved into proportion and cutout explorations through sketching. The goal was to find genuine warmth through geometry and material logic, not through added features. Three directions were developed and evaluated before committing to the final one.

The hardest constraint was the depth camera integration. Where the camera lives determines how the face reads emotionally. Place it wrong and you've either created a staring object or broken the form language entirely.

The second challenge was avoiding the uncanny valley without defaulting to pure abstraction. A robot that's too neutral feels distant, not calm. The solution had to sit between the two, readable as an agent, not a face and not a machine.

Competitive research and design analysis (shape, texture, proportion, color palette)

Head proportion and cutout explorations through sketching

Three concept directions developed in parallel: Sculptural, Geometric, Minimal

Evaluation and selection of the final direction with explicit reasoning

Manufacturing logic: draft angles, mold flow strategy, co-molded inserts, snap-fit neck connection

Final concept renders and written design rationale

The final direction, Sculptural Warmth, integrates sensor housing and maintenance access in a single lateral cutout, uses interpupillary distance rather than eye size to generate trust, and employs horizontal ribbing to guide attention toward the face and away from the mechanism.

The concept was delivered as a complete design proposal: research, three evaluated directions, a preferred direction with full rationale, and manufacturing notes. Ready to take into CAD.

Client: Confidential Role: Industrial Designer - concept design, proportion research, manufacturing logic Deliverables: Competitive research, proportion explorations, 3 concept directions, final direction with design rationale and manufacturing notes Duration: 1 week Year: 2025 Tools: Sketching, Sketchbook Pro, Vizcom