California Model and Design is a premier model studio based in San Francisco. Our team has produced exceptional work for leading design professional in various industries, including architecture, industrial design, cosmetics and consumer goods. Over the years, we have attracted a core of highly skilled artisans that appreciate our “no holds barred” approach to achieving the feel of a project. While much of our work is the tedious, but fun, hand-crafting of all of the tiny parts that go into the making of a model, we also use the latest techniques, such as laser machining, stereo lithography, SLS (and the other "printed" variants, CAD/CAM, and chemical milling when these tools will give the best results. We also have in-house capabilities in thermo forming and casting.

We are able to work from common 2D and 3D CAD formats, as well as sketches and hand drafted views. Because we tend to work in thousandths of an inch, the scale of the drawings, and whether they are metric or US Standard, is of no concern.

While we work in a variety of materials, acrylic and ABS are our most common choices. They are easily and accurately machined, bond strongly to themselves, are reasonably strong, and take finishes well. Other common materials are non-ferrous metals, PET, RUF, and wood. As photographs of our work show, we are capable of producing models for many different industries, and both smaller and larger than life. 

Precise color matching has become an important aspect of our work. We work with designers to produce a set of master swatches that become production standards.

Along with models, we also produce limited small production runs of products that are either in pre-release stage, or just serve too small a market to make injection molding and other large scale production techniques plausible.

Peter Jackson

Client List:   Amazon  •  Apple Inc.  •  Frog Design  •  FuseProject  •  Gap Inc.  •  Gensler & Associates  •  Google  •  Hargreaves Associates  •  IDEO  •  HOK  •  Landor Associates  •  Lawrence Halprin  •  Lime Lab  • MIT  •  National Park Service  •  NewDealDesign  •  Pentagram  •  Princeton University  •  Proctor & Gamble  •  Salesforce  • Samsung Design USA  •  Skidmore Owings & Merrill  •  Stanford University  •  Wired