santa-barbara
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Lifestyledesign Has Put 500 Products on Shelves. Its Trick Is Starting Before the Sketch.
The Santa Barbara studio has spent two decades turning fuzzy business questions into sunglasses, speakers, smart glasses and hard cases. Its advantage is less about drawing a beautiful object than refusing to hand the idea off halfway through.
Reputable Wants to Meet the Story Before It Becomes the Story
The Santa Barbara communications firm has built its pitch around a useful idea: by the time a headline appears, the important work may already be over.
The Agency That Asked Why Mothers Bought the Wrong Formula
Christie & Co has spent three decades selling purpose without pretending purpose sells itself. Its best tool is not a slogan, but a deceptively simple question: what actually made you choose?
The Agency That Put a Potato on the Runway
For forty years, EvansHardy+Young has treated familiar food as a problem of attention. Its best trick is not making the product stranger - it is finding the one place nobody expects to see it.
VADA put a design studio inside a public high school
At Santa Barbara High School, about 225 students combine academic coursework with art and design. VADA’s new studio makes that arrangement tangible - and its funding and admissions reveal what it takes to keep it public.
DesignArt Studios knows what to leave out
A Santa Barbara design firm makes its case through the decisions behind the finished room: where to put the kitchen, when to order the cabinets, and why the pool can wait.
Sonos Wired the Whole House for Sound - Then Shipped the App That Nearly Unplugged It
The company that made multi-room music feel effortless spent 2024 proving how quickly one software update can undo twenty years of goodwill - and 2025 trying to earn it back.
The Woman Who Sold America a Coffee With No Coffee In It
Caroline MacDougall couldn't drink coffee but loved the taste. So she roasted chicory, carob and figs into a caffeine-free brew - and built the best-selling coffee alternative in America.
MAAK Built Gear for the Front Line. Then 568 Backers Took It Outdoors.
A Santa Barbara hardware team took its frontline power system to Kickstarter, raised 20 times its goal, and learned that the real product was not a battery. It was everything the battery could connect to.
Habit Burger & Grill
It started as a burger stand under the Santa Barbara sun in 1969. Fifty-five years and one ampersand later, Habit Burger & Grill is Yum! Brands' bet that a chargrilled patty can scale without losing the char.
Unwrap
The AI-powered customer intelligence platform that proactively uncovers what matters most - so product teams stop guessing what their users actually want.
Sovato
Sovato is a Santa Barbara health-tech company building the first comprehensive, system-agnostic platform for remote robotic surgery and procedures - what the industry calls telesurgery. Co-founded by surgical-robotics pioneer Yulun Wang and healthcare strategist Cynthia Perazzo, Sovato lets a skilled surgeon operate a robotic system from hundreds or thousands of miles away, aiming to extend top surgical care to patients regardless of where they live. The company has raised $41M across its rounds and helped enable the longest-distance telesurgery ever completed.