Big Green EGG Grills and Our Core Principles
From April 2014 to July 2022, I served as the Principal Industrial Designer for Big Green Egg, headquartered in Atlanta, GA—the first and only in-house designer in the company's history. Prior to my interview, I was unfamiliar with both kamado grills and the Big Green Egg brand. I didn’t even cook. My family and I had recently returned to the US after seven years of running my furniture company in Panama. While re-establishing that business in the US would take time, I leveraged my industrial design background and accepted the position to get started.
Big Green Egg operated more like a culinary cult than a mainstream brand. Though small compared to industry giants like Weber, their product line was surprisingly underdeveloped from a design perspective. Their kamado grills remained largely unchanged from the traditional Japanese designs dating back thousands of years. The primary advancement lay in the ceramic material, which offered significantly improved resistance to thermal shock and cracking from repeated heating and cooling. This material's resilience enabled the company to offer a lifetime warranty on the ceramic grill components.
The emphasis on durable, long-lasting products resonated with my core design principles. This, coupled with the fact that nearly every non-core product required significant redesign, motivated me to stay with the company for eight years. During this time, I redesigned almost all existing accessories and introduced entirely new of grill furniture, most notably the Modular Nest System.
This system was designed to integrate the various furnishings used to support and surround an EGG into a cohesive, scalable platform. Customers could begin with a simple module to house their grill and then expand their setup with additional accessories and modules as their needs and outdoor cooking space evolved.
Nonetheless, despite all the new products I designed for the brand, it was the ceramic material which allowed Big Green Egg to offer a product guaranteed for life and that matters more than you think in world of changing trends, fast fashion and single-use items.
My time at Big Green EGG was very influential in helping me clarify my core principles which now drive my brand - centered around one very important material, wood, solid wood to be precise, and we fundamentally believe that the material and how it is sourced can be the fundamental basis for any company whose goal it is to offer an joyful, mindful product.
The three guiding core principles for Marco Bogazzi LLC:
Design for longevity
Choose materials and processes worth highlighting to the end user.
Strive for timeless aesthetics and functionality.
Driven by this, we design each product in solid wood, no laminates or veneers, use VOC-free finishes, and strive to ship our products fully assembled as we believe that fully assembled products will last longer that those that ship flat-packed.
As you explore all our products, we hope that our core principles shine through, and result in furnishings which bring you joy for many years to come.
Feel free to text Marco at 770-733-4105 to learn more. You can also email us at: marco@marcobogazzi.com