Monty Montague, IDSA | BOLTgroup
Monty is an industrial designer, artist, and principal at BOLTgroup. BOLTgroup has been a pioneer in the integration of product + brand innovation since the early 1990’s and Monty’s DMI Journal article of that period “Integrating the Product + Brand Experience” predicted the design profession’s progression towards total experience design.
BOLTgroup was selected by ID Magazine as one of the “top 40 design innovators in the United States.” Since the firm’s founding in 1985 Monty has led multidisciplinary teams in user research, industrial design, engineering, brand strategy, communications, interaction design, and innovation processes. His clients include GE Lighting, Rubbermaid, Herman Miller, and Ingersoll-Rand. He holds over 25 utility and design patents, and BOLTgroup has received multiple GOLD IDEA Awards, the CES Innovations Award and various international design awards from iF, ID Magazine, and others. His musings about design and innovation have been published in IDSA’s Innovation Magazine, DMI’s Design Management Journal, and PDMA’s Visions Magazine, he has been interviewed online by BusinessWeek Innovation Podcasts and National Public Radio, and he has lectured widely at universities and industry forums, including the IDSA national conference.
Monty is a co-founder of the Carolinas Chapter of IDSA, has held various chapter officer positions, and served on the national IDEA Awards Jury in 2004. He holds a Bachelor of Product Design degree with honors from The College of Design / North Carolina State University, and has received the College of Design’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999, and the IDSA Student Merit Award in 1980.
Monty started his career as a designer with the multidisciplinary design firm Design/Joe Sonderman. In addition to his design work, Monty is an award-winning sculptor, he sits on the board of a Charlotte based non-profit, promoting experimental art and cultural events, and he makes a mean Irish Whiskey Manhattan, that he enjoys way too much, especially in the company of his wife and daughter.
