Pratt Institute

Personal URL

Education

BFA Space Design, Aichi Prefecture University of Fine Arts
BFA, Environmental Design, Parsons School of Design
MFA, 3D Design, Cranbrook Academy of Art

Biography

Gary Shigeru Natsume is the Vice President and Director of Design/Research and Vice President of ECCO Design in New York City. Prior to joining ECCO Design, he worked for an international Industrial design consultancy frogdesign between Spring 1997 and Fall 2002 as a Senior Industrial Designer. During his time at frogdesign he worked at several frog offices include Soho, New York, Sunnyvale, California and Altensteig, Germany. He served for many of frogdesign’s major international clients such as Nike, Timex, Ford, and Coca-Cola.

Gary Natsume has developed a strong interest in two areas of industrial design practice. The first is Product Family Development, which involves strong cohesive brand promises and mass production implementation with multiple oversea manufacturers. The second one, Multi Discipline Design Strategy, includes user behavior study, design and technology trend analysis and product concept development.

While he is leading ECCO Design’s Research and Design effort he is also an active teacher at Pratt Institute. His objective is to introduce industry level constrains and challenges to students while maintaining academic freedom to explore forward thinking and innovative concepts. General Mills sponsored one of his most recent classes and currently he is involved with another program sponsored by Colgate Palmolive.