Joseph Riehl

Clients and collaborators

About

I'm Joe Riehl, a designer from Seattle, WA. I've spent 20+ years moving between industrial design, retail and spatial design, and architectural visualization, and more recently, software: the agents, tools and pipelines that let one designer do the work of an entire studio. I like designing the whole system, and testing it to see if it breaks. Then I make it better until it doesn't.

Skills

skills.md
  1. # skills.md
  3. > Joe Riehl. Designer, Seattle WA. Twenty-plus years, four disciplines, one way of working.
  5. ## Design
  6. - Industrial design, B.S. WWU 2008
  7. - Retail fixtures, displays and POP
  8. - Store-of-the-future experience strategy
  9. - Concept development from a brief
  10. - Spatial planning by zone
  11. - Brand integration in retail space
  12. - Concept through production handoff
  14. ## Visualization
  15. - Archviz for design review boards
  16. - 3ds Max modeling at real scale
  17. - Corona and V-Ray lighting and rendering
  18. - Unreal Engine real-time walkthroughs
  19. - VR and drone capture programs
  20. - Fabric simulation in Marvelous Designer
  21. - Gaussian splats from phone video
  22. - Photoshop post and compositing
  24. ## Fabrication
  25. - Dielines and contour-cut prep
  26. - Print mechanicals and large-format specs
  27. - BOMs and fixture pricing
  28. - Client CAD intake (SolidWorks, SketchUp)
  29. - 3D printing on a Bambu H2D
  30. - Vinyl and paper cutting (Cricut)
  32. ## Software and agents
  33. - Agent harnesses: skills, rules, checkpoints
  34. - Claude Code and Codex workflows
  35. - MCP bridges into design apps
  36. - Google Apps Script web apps
  37. - Python and Node tooling
  38. - Windows desktop apps (.NET, WPF)
  39. - React Native mobile prototypes
  40. - Static sites on Cloudflare
  41. - Local AI: Whisper, ComfyUI, local LLMs
  43. ## Leadership
  44. - Principal Designer, The Bernard Group
  45. - Built and ran a visualization team of five
  46. - Senior Associate, Ankrom Moisan
  47. - Mentoring interns with real ownership
  48. - Rolling out new tools to designers
  49. - Client presentations and reviews
  51. ## Tools
  52. - 3ds Max, Corona, V-Ray, Chaos Vantage
  53. - Unreal Engine 5, Cinema 4D, Blender
  54. - SketchUp, SolidWorks
  55. - Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
  56. - Marvelous Designer, Postshot, Meshy, ComfyUI
  57. - Claude Code, Codex, Apps Script
  58. - Bambu Studio, Cricut Design Space

Résumé

2022 – now

Principal Designer · The Bernard Group · Seattle, WA

Design and visualization for retail environments and brand experiences, from first sketch through fabrication. Lately also the studio's in-house toolmaker: agent pipelines that take a brief to finished renders.

2018 – 2022

Senior 3D Artist · Eight Inc. · Honolulu, HI

Pretty pictures of experiential design concepts for one of the studios behind the Apple Store.

2013 – 2018

Visualization Manager / Senior Associate · Ankrom Moisan Architects · Seattle, WA

Led a team of five 3D artists across three offices: renderings, animations and VR for design review, competitions and marketing.

2012 – 2013

Industrial Designer · Retail Logic · Brisbane, Australia

Retail and fixture design for the food and beverage world: Coles, Woolworths, Masterfoods, Diageo.

2011 – 2012

Industrial Designer · Built Design · Everett, WA

Products, tradeshow booths and fixtures for the outdoor industry: K2, Outdoor Research, Arc'teryx, MSR, Osprey.

2009 – 2011

Retail / Industrial Designer · Formfly Design @ Synsor · Everett, WA

Fixtures, kiosks and retail spaces for Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nintendo, Starbucks and friends.

2005 – 2008

The early years · Resolute Lighting · Avalanche Ranch Lighting · WWU

Custom light fixtures, a rustic-contemporary lighting line, and campus media design while finishing school.

2002 – 2008

B.S. Industrial Design · Western Washington University · Bellingham, WA

Where most of the personal work on this site was born.