Sprout Studios, a concept-to-launch design studio rooted in tech and innovation, is all about "wicked good design."
That begins in its South End headquarters, a basement office outfitted with a workshop and 3-D printers (bought from another local company, Formlabs). One of BostInno's Startups to Watch in 2020, the firm has quadrupled in size since 2014, with about 30 employees in Boston and more in its Brooklyn, Denver and San Diego offices.
Alongside its design work, Sprout Studios is also home to Sprout Labs, an internal incubator for products, brands and experiences invented by Sprout. The incubator expects to spin out five new companies next year.
"We're getting ready to go to trade shows," said Jordan Nollman, Sprout Studios' CEO. "We've been designing a little crazier stuff."
Sprout Studios' basement space is part office, part workshop and part showroom. Published designs adorn several walls, while others bear witness to works in progress. Most employees work at their desks, often using multiple monitors, but two or three people are usually building new products in the workshop.
Most recently, Sprout launched its brand Varna Tech, a storage and security device company behind locks for mason jars and other hardware. And toward the end of 2019, the firm earned a coveted spot on TIME’s annual Best Invention list for an underwater vehicle that detects microplastic content in the ocean, which Sprout Studios created in collaboration with the Cambridge-based lab Draper.
The tinkering doesn't stop with Sprout's commercial products. Sprout's lead industrial designer, Rich Orsini, managed to fix one of Nollman's family heirlooms: a pinball game that now enjoys daily use by Sprout employees.
"My cousin had it in her basement and it was just like, she moved, and it never worked again," Nollman said, playing as he spoke. "Luckily we brought it here. Rich knows what he's doing. So he fixed it; he got it to work. A lot of the fuses got replaced. A lot of the parts got replaced."
Click or swipe through the gallery below to check out the space.
