Scot is the Creative Director and Partner at Herbst Produkt, a design consultancy created with his father, American design pioneer Walter Herbst. The studio features a dynamic mix of work across consumer technology, healthcare and lifesciences, consumer packaged goods, furniture, and autonomous vehicles. From nimble startups to established Fortune 100 global brands their work coalesces a multidisciplinary team that includes ID, HF, UX, digital, brand, packaging, engineering and CGI,

Over the years the team at Herbst has won numerous global design awards and been featured in design and business publications including The Wall St Journal, Business Week, Wired, Inc. and Fast Company and their designs have been showcased in MoMA and numerous design exhibitions. Today their diverse client/partner roster includes Google, Logitech, Brita, Crate & Barrel, Burts Bees, Dolby, the Home Depot, Clorox and others.

In addition to his role at Herbst, Scot is also the Chief Product Officer at Slice Inc., an innovative brand of ceramic bladed hardware that Scot helped build and grow and was recently acquired.

Elisabeth has a special regard for universal design principles and sustainable efficiency. Her favorite part of the design process is front-end problem solving through ideation, especially CAD. Right now she is on a mission to bring medical products into the home for anyone to use.

Walter is a formative figure in American product design, having been named one of the “Founding fathers of industrial design in the US” by Business Week Magazine. His over 60 years of experience in industrial design has helped shape innovation consulting, with roles including:
Partner / Co-founder, Herbst Produkt.
Founder and Chairman, Herbst LaZar Bell Inc.
Director / Founder – Master of Product Design and Development Executive Education Program, Northwestern University.
Fellow, National Academy of Inventors.
Advisory Board, Material Science Department, Arizona State University
Advisory Board, University of Illinois – School of Art and Design
Advisory Board, Kellogg McCormick MMM program, Northwestern University.

Walter speaks and writes extensively on professional design, including his recent series No-Excuses Innovation and Mastering Product Innovation from Stanford Business Press.

Walter has a design degree from the University of Illinois, an MBA from Kellogg, Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. from Coventry University, Coventry England.

Will Hunter is a design leader who enjoys building thoughtful products at the intersection of function and craft. He is currently Design Director at Woof, where he helps shape the company’s physical and consumable products, and a co-founder of canu canteen, an outdoor-inspired brand focused on simple, durable solutions. With a background in industrial design and experience as both a practitioner and educator, Will brings a hands-on, human-centered perspective to evaluating design. As a Core77 Design Awards judge, he values clarity, usefulness, and ideas that improve everyday life.