About Card79

Seeing the future does not exclude the past. Tradition is just as valuable a lens for creating new things as any. Fortune tellers, for instance, specialize in using traditional instruments and frameworks to foresee the untold—from crystal balls and palmistry to tarot and ganjifa cards. 

Card79 excels at bridging radical, innovative concepts with beautiful, approachable design. Embracing the spirit of a fortune teller and practice of scientific innovation, we reach both ahead and behind us to create something truly unique.

The year is 1954, and Hormozd is hosting a group of friends and family at his home in Yazd, a small village in Iran. They have come to him for their fortunes. He is a locally renowned palm reader who, on special occasions, resorts to his ganjifa deck, a set of 78 cards distinguished by their circular form. Then and now, it’s a scary and beautiful thing to look into the future.  Sometimes you need a trained eye to guide you. Hormozd offered that guidance for many, many years to many, many people.

Hormozd’s story and work resonated deeply with his grandson, Afshin, who founded Card79 to continue in the line of his grandfather’s work. Design is a lot like fortune telling, after all. Like card readings, it’s a way of expressing something new. What comes after the 78th card of Hormozd’s ganjifa deck? We’re eager to find out.

Come in and have a seat. The future is waiting.

Who we are

Card79 is a tight-knit team of designers from all over the world.  While our diverse backgrounds keep our perspective fresh, we uniformly align around our obsessive curiosity about what comes next and what that might look like.

 

Approach

Some people use crystal balls.  Other people read palms.  Our approach includes:

Design Research
While some things may emerge mysteriously as if behind the haze of a crystal ball, most of our ideas are inspired and rooted in interpersonal connections and observations.

Research and Insights
Stakeholder Ideation Workshops
Product User Testing

Industrial Design
Sometimes the future is best suited by beautiful, well-considered three dimensional objects.

Ideation
Design Development
Softgoods Prototyping and Sourcing
3D CAD
Mechanical Engineering/DFM
Electrical Engineering Liasing

Experience Design
And sometimes the future lives best in the digital realm.

User Experiences
Visual Design
Motion Design
Hardware/Software Prototyping
Developer Liasing

We reached out to Card79 to help us create a design prior to an important event with a very tight deadline. Afshin and team were extremely accommodating of our schedule, and worked diligently to make the timeline--which they did. We managed to do multiple rounds of iteration in a short time, provide (sometimes conflicting) feedback openly, and at the end we were impressed by the outcome. I look forward to working with Card79 again.

Ali Kashani Head of Postmates X

Card79's visualization of design solutions inspired customers to take a leap with our startup. Card79 built our first prototype and as a true partner, worked around the clock to triage last minute issues that came up.

Douglas Fulop Head of Product, Kindred Robotics

Card79 moved us through a key phase of product design. The team has an awesome mix of method and creativity. Strongly recommended for any company committed to serving their customers better.

Ryan Smith CEO, FTSY

Thank you Card79 for the outstanding service and expertise you've provided as we move towards bringing our technology to commercialization, We chose you because of your wearable design expertise and you are delivering.

Deb Barry Project Manager, XCO Tech

We’ve worked with Card79 over a number of years. Originally recommended by an experienced design partner they certainly lived up to the recommendation with an empathetic, flexible and positive approach. The team have excellent natural design talent and are able to patiently work with often vague concepts, and ideas to deliver a fantastic end results.

Tim Antos CEO, Kokoon Tech

Velocitek has had the great privilege of working with Afshin and the Card79 team to design five different products since 2008, all of which have been commercially successful. The Card79 industrial design team possesses both the brilliant creative vision needed to generate exciting concepts and the practical experience, focus and persistence needed to get them to market. Card79's input has been and continues to be the critical factor in Velocitek's success. Card79 is our most valued strategic partner.

Alec Stewart CEO, Velocitek
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