Relighting the fuse

Since establishing his San Francisco studio Fuseproject in 1999, Swiss-born product guru Yves Béhar has been Silicon Valley’s go-to designer. From the Jawbone fitness tracker and One Laptop per Child to The Frame for Samsung and Herman Miller’s Public Office Landscape, he has consistently woven cutting-edge technology and bold ideas into brilliant, user-friendly creations. Béhar’s success is partly a result of his studio’s “design venture” approach: Even when it isn’t a founding partner of a start-up — as was the case with August, the smart home-entry system — Fuseproject has been intimately involved in the full process of designing products that have launched companies. An example is the Snoo robotic bassinet, which soothes and rocks a crying baby to sleep to help alleviate some of the stresses that contribute to postpartum depression; Fuseproject designed it with Dr. Harvey Karp, the California pediatrician and children’s health advocate.