Helen Walters

Robert Brunner, founder of Ammunition.With a blue-chip client list that includes HP, Palm, Polaroid and Apple, Robert Brunner is no stranger to the demands of high-tech design. His gift lies in his ability to create objects that are as beautiful as they are technologically sophisticated. Previously a partner at the prestigious design company Pentagram, Brunner recently branched out to forge his own firm, Ammunition. Headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in Padua, Italy, the company will continue to work as designers for hire, but Brunner has also started developing his own projects from scratch.

Thomas Meyerhoffer, founder of Meyerhoffer.Surfers are very conservative,” says Swedish industrial designer Thomas Meyerhoffer, who took up the sport when he moved to California in the early 1990s. That might seem to contradict the daring, forever-young image of surfing, but Meyerhoffer has a point. While peripheral styling may have evolved, board designs themselves have hardly changed in years. And while he didn’t deliberately set out to upend the industry, Meyerhoffer has introduced a new line of surfboards that embody both performance and poetry.

Branko Lukic, cofounder of NonObject.Serbian industrial designer Branko Lukic came up with an unusual concept for his four-person design consultancy based in Palo Alto. NonObject began as a book proposal in which he detailed “out-there” concepts for radical new products. “Jules Verne wrote about a submarine before such a thing existed, and that inspired people to actually create one,” Lukic says.