Design Burger

Design Burger x Naya x Onshape

How three design communities came together to explore new tools and turn digital concepts into tangible products.

Posted - 18 March 2026

Design tools are evolving rapidly, offering new ways to connect, build, and share ideas. For creative communities to truly engage with these platforms, they need opportunities that feel meaningful – spaces where creativity is the goal, and the tools support the journey.

For the third edition of Reimagine, Design Burger and Naya came together with Onshape to do something different: a shared experiment in how designers can collaborate globally using modern, cloud-based tools that make creativity more fluid and accessible.

Our shared goal was to build community, encourage creativity, and raise awareness of the tools shaping the next era of industrial design. Together, we wanted to demonstrate what happens when the entire workflow, from ideation to CAD to storytelling, lives within one connected ecosystem.

The outcome? Over 200,000 views, 500 hours of community time spent using Naya and Onshape, and a wave of inventive, beautifully realised designs from around the world

The Hypothesis

 

We live in a time of constant visual stimulation. Portfolios, swipe content and cinematic case studies, it has never been easier to feel creatively inspired. But turning that inspiration into action requires access to the right tools to develop and execute your vision. That’s where Naya and Onshape come in, creating space for designers to work more intuitively, share ideas seamlessly, and stay connected to their process.

With Design Burger’s 230,000-strong audience, Naya’s creative community, and Onshape’s vast global user base, this collaboration brought together a uniquely passionate group of industrial designers, people who care deeply about their workflow and the craft of making.

So we approached this collaboration with a simple hypothesis: what if we could not only showcase a tool, but embed it directly into the community’s creative process, and even use it to plan and deliver the competition itself?

The Idea 

 

A global challenge with real tools, real briefs, and real outcomes.

Between Naya, Onshape, and Design Burger, we brought together three design-focused communities – combining Onshape’s user base of over 3 million, Naya’s experience powering teams at Google, Adidas, and Logitech, and Design Burger’s engaged network of 230,000+ industrial designers.

For this edition, we asked participants to design a desk organiser or system that brings clarity to a designer’s daily space.

Naya is all about creating order and focus within the creative process. By unifying drives, files, links, and feedback into one intuitive workspace, it helps designers stay in flow. Bringing that philosophy into the brief felt natural, encouraging participants to bring the same sense of clarity to their physical workspace that Naya brings to their digital one.

Unlike past editions, this competition introduced a new twist: submissions had to be presented through Naya, allowing judges to see not just the outcomes, but the thinking and structure behind them. It turned each entry into a complete design story.

Power in Integration 

 

What powered this collaboration was a seamless, cloud-based workflow.

Onshape provides a cloud-native CAD environment, while Naya offers a flexible space to organise, present, and share the design process – all within the browser. Designers could ideate, develop, and present their work without switching tools, juggling exports, or losing momentum.

For judges, this integration was just as impactful. They could inspect 3D CAD files directly within each Naya board, making the review process faster, more intuitive, and more interactive than traditional static decks.

As Onshape’s team put it, this level of integration “connects design teams at every stage of development” – exactly the kind of joined-up experience we hoped to champion.

To spark inspiration across the community, we partnered with design influencer Sam Gwilt (@sam_does_design) to narrate his journey of designing a desk organizer and to demonstrate the power of using Naya and Onshape together. By sharing his process of going from initial idea to completed design with his audience of over 46,000 designers, Sam highlighted the core goals of the challenge and provided a practical blueprint for the community to tell their own design stories.

The Execution

 

500 hours of community time spent working with Naya and Onshape.

After announcing the brief across our combined channels, engagement was fast and far-reaching. Posts reached over 200,000 people in the first few days, and more than 50 entries arrived from around the world. Each reflected 8-12 hours of dedicated work, proof of a community deeply invested in both the challenge and the tools themselves.

Our judging panel brought together leading voices from across the industry, including: Jon Marshall (Pentagram), Kirsty Dias (PriestmanGoode), Simon Hamilton (YesColours / RCA), Sam Gwilt (BLOND), Saad Rajan (Naya), Isabella Trani (My Imagination), Michael LaFleche (Onshape by PTC), Honor Jennings (PriestmanGoode).

Finalists were judged across five clear criteria:

  • Visual Aesthetic – Overall form, colour, CMF, and clarity of presentation
  • Design for Manufacture – Feasibility, process, materials, and prototyping considerations
  • Process Communication – Depth and clarity of the workflow shared inside Naya
  • Creative Ingenuity – Originality, functionality, and concept strength
  • Relevance to the Brief – How well the design brought clarity to a workspace and echoed Naya’s organisational philosophy

From modular layouts to 3D-printed systems, the diversity of submissions showed how rich the outcomes can be when structure and creativity meet.

To bring the challenge into the real world, we commissioned the top three designs to be produced as one-of-one prototypes. Knowing their concepts would be physically built encouraged participants to design with real-world constraints, expanding the competition from digital engagement to tangible production.

Leveraging Naya’s AI-driven manufacturing estimation tool

To move from digital workflows to physical production with confidence, we integrated Naya’s Estimation AI tool directly into our prototyping process. 

The AI-driven tool allowed us to value-engineer designs, compare the impacts of changes in materials or order quantity, evaluate and adjust variables like manufacturing location, and plan the best path forward, all within a single meeting.

Having cost reports at our fingertips meant we could go back to suppliers with informed costs and feasible designs, allowing us to benchmark and secure better final quotes. We turned weeks of back-and-forth into minutes of work, and as a result, kept everything on track and aligned with our goals.

Behind the Scenes 

 

We didn’t just use Naya to host the competition. We used it to plan every detail.

From day one, our Naya board acted as the central hub for internal collaboration between Design Burger, Naya and Onshape. We used it to:

  • Build out the initial pitch
  • Align on roles and timelines
  • Manage CAD and render assets
  • Coordinate social comms and marketing
  • Track judge feedback and shortlist results
  • Organise prototyping and final photography

Every key decision, from brief wording to video scheduling, lived in one shared workspace.

This backend visibility made the process faster, more transparent, and easier to manage across time zones. We were in London, Sydney, NYC & Boston, but planning as if we were in the same room.

What We Learned 

 

Designers come for speed, but they stay for structure.

One of the clearest outcomes was how naturally the competition evolved into a design sprint. The lightweight, browser-based workflow made it easy for participants to share their process without over-formatting. Many said it helped them think more clearly about how they communicate their work.

Internally, the shift felt just as intuitive. Our shared Naya board became a live control centre – tracking progress, aligning teams, and capturing every step of the journey in one visual space.

It reminded us that the future of design tools isn’t just about more features, it’s about less friction. Platforms like Naya and Onshape make room for ideas to grow, not by taking over, but by bringing everything together.

What’s Next

 

Building on this momentum, we’re already planning the next Reimagine brief hosted within Naya, with new categories, new collaborators and deeper integration into the design development process.

But our shared purpose remains the same:

To build community.

To encourage creativity.

And to help designers discover tools that make their work more connected, efficient, and inspiring.

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