Patrick Fricke

Industrial Designer

Patrick is an Industrial Designer with 17 years of experience in the Contract Furniture industry, specializing in both standard and custom product development. His work spans Fortune 100 and 500 companies, with several of his designs remaining in production nearly two decades after launch.

Rooted in a deep understanding of people, places, and products, Patrick takes a human-centered approach to design. His process seamlessly integrates hand sketching, digital modeling, and physical prototyping, refining ideas and validating them at every stage. With expertise in Design for Manufacturing (DfM), vendor selection, and pre-production readiness, he takes concepts from inception to execution, making certain they are not only forward-thinking but also fully realized in production.

Patrick’s sessions are tailored to each client, with minimal information needed to get started. Whether you have a design or idea and need help pushing it over the finish line, or you are starting with a blank sheet of paper, Patrick is there to help.

Professional Background

  • SENIOR INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

  • PRINCIPAL DESIGNER

    Principal designer for Steelcase’s client focused studio; studio b. Engaged with clients like Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Bungie, Facebook and more to solve business challenges through furniture.

  • INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

  • SENIOR INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

    Responsible for new product development, art directing photography and new product literature as well as updating legacy products and literature.

  • FREELANCE DESIGNER

    Blurred the line between residential and commercial markets to develop high end custom furniture solutions for A&D clients within the contract/commercial industry.

  • DESIGNER

    Staff product designer for Washington State’s greenest manufacturer. Conceived and built first generation concept for a power voice and data raceway. 

    Led user reviews with key customers, designers and A&D firms.

    Developed and built a materials’ display carts for Seattle corporate showroom.

  • INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

    Lead industrial designer of “Unite” workplace system. A bridge solution to cohesively meld KI products seamlessly. Awarded Green Builder’s Award and selected by Amazon for corporate headquarters in Seattle.

    Co-creator of custom work station solution for Microsoft headquarters in Seattle as well as Facebook in Palo Alto

    Co-designed the best selling Sela Lounge family and table collection.  Identified the seating product gap in the lobby/lounge portfolio, specifically pertaining to the college/university market. Line extended into the B2B market.

    Worked with the lead interior designer to create finish option palettes for products. Led the redesign of the Torsion- Torsion Air, product line resulting in an inventor patent award. Lead materials’ selection and details to build upon original design by Giancarlo Piretti.

    Co-designer awarded inventor patent for “Learn2”, a collaborative swivel seat for the K-12 education market. Won Neocon Gold Award 2011.

  • FREELANCE DESIGNER

    Experience as a metal shop technician and a passion to build beautiful objects from raw materials led to the creation of this design firm.

    Developed custom furniture for client specific applications.

On-Demand
Consulting Sessions

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