Multi-faceted design startup Lingrove went from creating sustainable guitars and office furniture to reimagining home furniture during the pandemic. Learn about their evolving design journey and how Autodesk Fusion 360 supported them along the way.

If you hear the word pivot, do you instantly imagine Ross from Friends trying to move the oversized couch up the stairs? All jokes aside, pivoting a business can be incredibly difficult for many companies, especially during a pandemic.

Take Lingrove, a startup that produces office furniture, for example. As offices began to shutter in early 2020, the company faced an empty marketplace.

But Lingrove had already completed a big pivot once before. They first started out producing guitars for Blackbird Guitars using Ekoa, a proprietary natural composite made of flax linen and resin that’s much more sustainable than wood. Then they began applying Ekoa to sustainable office furniture.

And then the pandemic hit. It was time to pivot once again.

“The idea through the pandemic is that the office and home are no longer two different things,” says Joe Luttwak, CEO, Lingrove and Blackbird Guitars. “Communal seating, space-defining modular seating pieces are not what the world needs right now. What does the world need? Well, people are working from home, or they’re going to be. We said, ‘Why don’t we work on some pieces that can enhance the work-from-home experience and also have applications that are multifunctional.’”

Pivoting with Fusion 360

The team quickly landed on a shelf as the first new product to start designing. Autodesk Fusion 360 was especially important for its CAD/CAM integration and the ability to produce many iterative prototypes in a short span of time.

“The 3D modeling is a big part of the process,” says Yvonne Mouser, designer, Lingrove. “Fusion 360 is a really good tool for building that model and then being able to go into the CAD programming and then being able to take that onto the physical tooling.”

“We’re utilizing tools to accelerate and realize our ideas without having to spend huge amounts of money on molds or huge amounts of time,” Luttwak adds.

Learn more about Lingrove’s journey with Autodesk here.

Fusion 360 is here to support you from one design project to the next — whether it’s guitars, furniture, or something new. Try Fusion 360 for free today: