STUFF MEETS
OAKLEY’S VICE PRESIDENT OF DESIGN ON INNOVATION AND KEEPING HIS CARS ANALOGUE
Oakley is a passionate place to work for me.
I love the history of the brand and the constant problem-solving that we’re doing for consumers and professional athletes.
I’m the VP of design for Oakley and I’ve been working here for 11 years, specifically for industrial design.
This encompasses all eyewear, helmets and related products, and sometimes packaging. Ihaveafairlylargeresponsibility for the brand, because a large portion of our identity resides in these products.
With over 1000 patents pending and granted worldwide, Oakley takes great pride in its innovation.
Jim Jannard’s first invention in 1975, the Oakley Grip, was made for motocross. Jim’s invention would revolutionise the industry with anew material, Unobtainium 49, as well as anew profile that had never been done – all with the idea that these inventions would allow the athlete to perform better.
Our core competency will always focus around optics.
Akey example is the Oakley Prizm technology, designed toenhancecolourandtuneout distractions with lenses that have contrast specific to the environment. So, if you’re snowboarding you can see features in the snow that you might not recognise with a standard grey lens. Or if you’re mountain-biking you can see differences in the terrain that are specific to the various tones of brown and green that you see on a trail.
Giving maximum view without impairing peripheral view was one of our initial thoughts when we began Physiomorphic Geometry, which we first used with the Kato sunglasses in 2021.
When we discuss optics in design, I think we are always posed with the challenge of creating performance enhancements but also maintaining clarity. Field of view is one of the highest priorities when you talk to athletes in different disciplines. We started with an abstract idea: if you drape fabric over a face, it leaves an impression of the bone structure of the skull. Could we potentially buildalensandmaintainoptical clarity with the impression ofthehumanskull?Bykeeping the lens surface as close to the face as possible, we could achieve maximum field of view. So we integrated what wou
