Simple solutions to strategic product development challenges
From highly advanced medical device design to creative packaging designs and consumer products, users demand products that perform exceedingly well and appeal to their aesthetic expectations. If money was no object, this process would be easy. But, of course, you must engineer and manufacture products in the most cost-efficient manner possible with the highest quality.
At TKDG, we’ve been creating simple and elegant new product designs to satisfy strategic product development challenges for more than 30 years. As a leading industrial design consulting firm, we’ve successfully applied our “Design to Simplify” process to create hundreds of breakthrough industrial product design innovations in:
• Medical device design, orthopedic instrument design
• Consumer products design
• Complex equipment design
• Creative packaging design
• Engineering design
TKDG serves the rapidly changing needs of Fortune 500 companies and small venture funded companies that need industrial design services. Choose any or all of our end-to-end services from early stage concept development, computer modeling, product design, prototyping, engineering, materials analysis and sourcing, to manufacturing packaging, and branding.
Breakthrough innovation in industrial design
TKDG's holistic product design methodology, ”Design to Simplify”, reduces every strategic product development project into its most basic elements—users' expectations, functional requirements, design excellence, and manufacturability.
Our industrial design projects range in scale and complexity from hand-held instruments to complex orthopedic instrument design, from diagnostic equipment to consumer products and creative packaging design. Our team approach integrates technical, economic, and management expertise into the planning and design of your product.
By discovering opportunities and creating the unexpected, we’ve won numerous design awards and been awarded more than 40 national and international utility and design patents with a number of patents currently pending.
A reputation for delivering industrial product design excellence
In addition to patents and design awards, TKDG’s reputation for excellence has been documented by a list of satisfied clients. To see a sampling of what customers say about our work, click here.
“As designers, we have an obligation to create new product designs that solve problems people face in their everyday activities. To find the best solution for every industrial design challenge, we listen to the user, listen to our clients, and listen to the manufacturer.”
Kazuna Tanaka Principal & President, Tanaka Kapec Design Group, Inc.
“Winning awards is always gratifying, but never as gratifying as seeing our clients succeed in the marketplace with an innovative new product design and protective patents that results from creative design.”
Jeffrey Kapec Principal & Executive Vice President, Tanaka Kapec Design Group, Inc.
Leadership
Jeffrey Kapec
Principal + Co-Founder
Jeffrey Kapec has more than 35 years industrial design and consulting and strategic product development experience in medical instrument design, including orthopedic instrument design and other surgical instruments, medical diagnostic equipment, pharmaceutical packaging, drug delivery systems, technical instruments, office equipment, office furniture design, and consumer products.
Mr. Kapec has been awarded more than 45 national and international utility and design patents in advanced technology, surgical instruments, and mechanical design. In 1980, he and Kazuna Tanaka founded TKDG, a full-service engineering design and industrial design consulting firm. Mr. Kapec also is a professor in the Industrial Design Department at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, and is actively involved in numerous professional design organizations, including the IDSA, Rowena Reed Kostellow Fund and Core77. He graduated with honors from Pratt Institute, receiving a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree.
Yukiko Naoi
Principal
Yukiko is a creative and user research leader focused on experience design and services across TKDG. She brings over 15 years of experience in the design and development of innovative user experiences for a wide variety of products, platforms, and services. She drives the innovative thinking and strategic product development to create new product design that address the challenges and opportunities of TKDG's clients. She has been awarded 20 national and international utility and design patents in UX, mechanical design, and consumer products.
She holds a bachelor's degree in environmental design from Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan and a Master of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute, NY. Yukiko also completed a post-graduate internship in the Integrative Therapies Program for Children with Cancer at Columbia University Medical Center.
Kazuna Tanaka
Co-Founder
Kazuna Tanaka is trained in design and engineering in Japan and the U.S., Mr. Tanaka has extensive experience leading industrial product design initiatives in medical device design, including surgical instruments, laparoscopic instruments, medical diagnostics, hand-held computers, drug delivery systems, pharmaceutical packaging, and office equipment.
In 1980, he and Jeffrey Kapec founded TKDG, a full-service industrial design consulting firm. Prior to founding TKDG, Mr. Tanaka supported several university and corporate initiatives in electronic and mechanical packaging engineering, and mechanical and industrial design, including the Earth and Science Department at MIT. Mr. Tanaka studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts where he graduated with honors. He also received a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from Pratt Institute. Mr. Tanaka has taught courses in asian and graphic art at the Boston Museum School, an affiliate of Tufts University. He has been awarded over 45 national and international utility and design patents in advanced technology and mechanical design.