The Heroic Design™ Masterclass delivers hard-won insights to encourage and accelerate your design journey
The Heroic™ Design Masterclass inpires
Heroic™ Design offers a rigorous design process you can trust to deliver professional and remarkable product designs.
The Heroic™ Design Masterclass complements the Workbooks with 14 detailed video classes.
If you learn best by video, the masterclass will accelerate your learning; provide extra theory, philosophy, and examples; provide encouragement for the journey ahead; and help you avoid the many pitfalls present in new product development.
Each Masterclass adds depth to the Workbook by covering important concepts in detail
The philosophy of being and becoming a designer
The goals and theory of each design step
Detailed explanations of each design technique
Detailed examples and insights into design
The Masterclass lectures bring the process to life
The masterclass lectures give you detailed insights into the design process and what it means to see the world as a designer.
These 14 pre-recorded masterclass video lectures dive deep, using images and metaphors to get at the underlying principles of the design process. Then, each process step is explained in detail.
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I also share hard-won wisdom from decades of new product development in start-up companies, to help you avoid the typical mistakes.
Start your design journey today
The 14 Heroic™ Design Masterclass lectures cover the entire design process
Each masterclass lecture covers a major topic in the Workbook. They are an excellent way to learn and prepare for each design task.
The Masterclass Timeline
A Heroic™ Design Workbook is required
The Heroic™ Design Masterclass is an additional resource, that complements the theory, examples, and templates in the Workbook.
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The Heroic™ Design Workbook records your design work in templates designed for each step. The workbook is always ready to capture your creativity.
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Watching the masterclass before completing each design step prepares and encourages you to design at the limits of your creativity.
Join the companionship of designers, with mentorship from a 25-year new product designer
Christopher McLean, P.Eng.
My name is Christopher McLean. I'm a professional mechanical engineer with over 25 years of design leadership in start-up companies.
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I started my career designing gas purification plants for renewable energy: hydrogen for refueling stations, oxygen for fuel cell vehicles and medical oxygen, and biogas for energy recovery and greenhouse gas reduction.
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I also co-founded Espro, a company that improves coffee quality and consistency for home baristas and coffee shops. I used this process to design consumer products featured in the New York Times, and sold in stores like Starbucks, Williams Sonoma, and Nordstrom.
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Since selling Espro, I have been teaching design as an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia, mentoring students and companies, and perfecting the Heroic Design Workbook and Masterclass.
Through the Heroic Design Masterclass,
I will guide and mentor you
I dive deeper into design philosophy, to guide you in being/becoming a better product designer.
I reveal more insights into each of the process steps, so you better see how they all fit together.
I offer more encouragement, to inspire and embolden you to design at the limits of your creativity.
M. S.
With big dreams of success, I've attempted to create many products over the past 15 years. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of money and time and ultimately didn't see any of my ideas through to a sellable product.
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Heroic Design's process helped me break down the large problems involved in product design, into small, manageable ones. The rigor provided by Chris' guidance and workbook decreased my feelings of overwhelm and resistance, emotions which had always sabotaged earlier product design attempts.
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The workbook also encourages organic brainstorming giving me a pathway to design features I hadn't thought of before. The process was fun and super creative!
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I'm close to finalizing a digital product I feel will be a game changer in my market.
J. H.
I can't say that I have ever followed a design process quite as robust as the one outlined in this workbook.
I went into this course with a very complicated idea in mind, but following the workbook and masterclass really helped me break it down. It introduced concepts I hadn't heard of with great detail, but in a manageable way for new designers like myself.
Despite facing a lot of challenges, Chris' support always guided me to come up with my own solutions. He really challenged my design thinking skills in an encouraging way.
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It's not an easy process, but it's a very rewarding experience and I will gladly recommend it to anyone who has an idea for a design. It provided me with so much value, and I hope it does for you too.
A. P.
Heroic Design paves the way from an idea to an actual product. It teaches you the process step by step, and gives you a tool that can be applied to any design project.
It helped me immensely to organize my thought process and pay attention to important details that I would have missed otherwise. For me the experience was invaluable and joyful.
Start your design journey today
The Heroic™ Design Masterclass is a full course in new product design
Introduction
Part 1. Your Users
MC02 - Ideation
Connect your interests and expertise with a user community with a problem worth solving.
MC03 - Empathy and Quality Function Deployment
Understand how your users describe a great solution, and how you can give them more of what they want.
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MC04 - Functional Mapping
Break the overall problem down into a system of smaller problems.
Part 2. Conceptual Design
MC05 - Brainstorming 1
Brainstorm, rate, and choose creative solutions at the Sub-Function level.
MC06 - Brainstorming 2
Increase the volume and quality of your solutions.
MC07 - Prototyping
Understand the different types of prototypes, and where to apply them.
MC08 - Overall Solution
Combine ideas into overall solutions, then rate and choose one take forward.
Part 2. (continued)
MC09 - Design Analysis 1
Perform Design for Cost/Manufacturing/
Assembly/Sustainability Analyses.
MC10 - Design Analysis 2
Implement the results of your analyses.
MC11 - Design Failure Modes & Effects Analysis
Identify and mitigate the risk caused by potential failure modes.
MC12 - Conceptual Design Review
Ensure you've chosen the most generous design for your users.
Part 3. Detailed Design
MC13 - Detailed Design
Document your design prior to launch.
MC14 - Detailed Design Review
Review your detailed design, and the overall process.
The Masterclass lectures are separate from my YouTube channel
The Masterclass covers the entire Heroic Design Process, start to finish
I regularly post free videos on YouTube, to help you grow your design expertise and creativity.
These short YouTube videos bounce from topic to topic, covering aspects of the design process.
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The Masterclass video lectures are different. They follow through the entire Heroic Design Process, introducing each step in detail before you complete it in your Workbook.
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All together, the 14 masterclass lectures are an entire course in new product design and development.
With every idea, two journeys begin.
The first is a battle for the life of your design itself. The second is your journey to become a better designer.
As designers, we willingly and joyfully enter the creative world. It is chaotic, and has different rules. Learning to design is learning these new rules, so that we can generously create solutions for our users and gain a mastery of this creative world.
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We also join the companionship of designers, working through time to capture Chaos within Order. We collaborate with all of the designers before us and keep their work alive.
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This is all an adventure, and I will do my best to encourage you on both journeys.
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The Heroic™ Design Workbook – to guide and encourage your design
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The Heroic™ Design Masterclasses – to share designer wisdom
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Regular free lectures – to help you grow as a designer
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I can’t wait to see what you design.
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Best, Chris
