Michael Angelini

Currently developing and designing gear for the ultralight hunting company KUIU. Categories include backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, gloves and hats. The role consists of working closely with the design team, communicating with afilliate factories, and ensuring the best possible hunting product is brought to market.

Eventually took on an expanded role as Design Manager. New responsibilities included managing the Equipment Development department, in addition to my duties as the Equipment Designer.

Worked as the sole Equipment Designer at Marmot Mountain. Responsible for designing packs, tents, sleeping bags, and gloves. The largest portion of the job was working closely with the equipment development team to bring new, and fun outdoor products to market.

Worked as an Equipment Developer for Bay Area outdoor company The North Face. I worked directly with the design team and affiliate factories to ensure that the intent of concept, and quality of execution, are maintained during the prototyping and manufacturing process. Duties included creating technical specs, communicating with factories, and completing discrepancies for manufacturing.

In this role, I worked as a contractor for the TNF Equipment team (includes backpacks, luggage, tents and sleeping bags). Because of my background in Design and Development, I was able to go back and forth between both the design team and the development team. As a member of the design team I helped create seasonal color specs, sketched new product ideas, and brought a duffel collection to market (available Spring '19). As a member of the development team I helped deliver production specs to our affiliate factories and ran seasonal BOM discrepancies.

High Sierra moved into the "Lifestyle" category of backpacks and I was tasked with creating the initial collections. Besides designing and developing all product for the category, it was also my job to define where the brand fit into the consumer landscape, and create strategies to get placement with new retailers. As always, it was important to ensure that all new offerings aligned with the High Sierra brand.

The CITYPAK Project designs and distributes backpacks built specifically for the homeless. The project is a partnership between High Sierra and a local Chicago philanthropist. By the end of 2016, we will have donated more than 28,000 packs around the globe. I have worked as the lead designer on the project since it began in 2011. I was tasked with defining the scale and scope of the project, and worked with the CITYPAK team to engage local outreach groups, as well as homeless individuals, to ensure that the backpack we designed fit their needs. It's been an extremely worthwhile project to be a part of, and using my design skills for the greater good has been both humbling and rewarding.

As a Product Designer at High Sierra I worked in a team environment to research future trends, sketch new product concepts, send design specifications to our affiliate factories overseas, as well as implement final design revisions to create market-ready backpacks and products. I also worked closely with our sales and marketing team to ensure that the price point and aesthetic of all final products were in line with the High Sierra brand.

Studio One Eleven is a Chicago based packaging design firm. As a freelance designer, I worked with the in-house design team on a children's packaging project. The client was a national distributor of children's products and it was our task to create new packaging that would inspire customers and win back market share that it had lost to competitors. Duties included researching the current market of children's products and sketching new packaging concepts.

As a product design intern at Timbuk2 it was my job to work with their in-house design team and assist where needed. Duties included creating line art of in-line product, creating specs for manufacturing, color blocking for next season's products, and sketching concepts for future product.