A Decade of Design Research in Thailand
Early 2000s
Our founder, Adisorn Supawatanakul, was invited to lecture in the Industrial Design programs at Chulalongkorn and KMUTT by Phd graduates from IIT Institute of Design.
2012
The Design Research Society invited Adisorn Supawatanakul to present at its first conference in Thailand, DRS2012: Re:Search - Uncertainty, Contradiction and Value
2012
Thailand Design Center (TCDC), now the Creative Economy Agency (CEA) invited Adisorn Supawatanakul to present at the TCDC's annual Creativity Unfold Symposium.
2013
Teak is officially incorporated in Thailand with its headquarters in Bangkok becomes the first market research firm design research firm in Thailand.
2015
Sawyer Jordan Lahr becomes a new shareholder and joins as General Manager
2015 & onwards
Design Thinking becomes mainstream in Thailand as large corporations and international consultancies began to seek human-centered approaches to business challenges in Thailand.
2016
Thailand 2.0 policy drove demand for UX research, making Teak a UX research supplier for local banks, design firms, and international design consultancies.
2023
Teak celebrates 10 years of practicing Design Research in Thailand.
Our team
Adisorn “Glar” Supawatanakul, Co-Founder
Adisorn is an art and design enthusiast with decades of experience in design research who oversees our consulting projects from planning to deliverables and ensures all recommendations are actionable. He is our resident authority on all things about design research and design thinking. If you want to know how to apply social research and design to product development, he’s the person to consult. He loves teaching design research as much as he loves doing it himself, giving his time to teaching as a guest lecturer or adjunct professor.
Sawyer Jordan Lahr, Company Director
Sawyer is a filmmaker turned entrepreneur turned applied researcher with a love for storytelling who oversees consulting projects, operations, marketing, communications, and strategy for the company. He is dedicated to developing the quality of work as well as the capabilities of our team and is always ushering in new ways of working. He also guides his team to elicit stories from the field and bring those stories to life on the pages of our presentations with emotionally powerful insights, rich media, and visualizations.
Kanatip "Tip" Marks, Design Research Director
Kanatip is a researcher and designer with a passion for plants and pets who facilitates both research and design activities across projects including creating engaging and effective stimulus materials and research tools for fieldwork and ideation workshops. Her ability to understand how designers think and how organizations work enables her to work in close collaboration with clients across business units to implement research findings. She is also an incredibly skilled moderator of customer co-creation sessions and UX interviews as well as a master facilitator of ideation workshops, both in-person and remote interviews.
Supattra "Gift" Bunnuan, Design Researcher
Supattra is a curious and fearless applied anthropologist who helps her team dive deep into the lives of our research participants to see insight into what others may see as mundane. She is a people person who quickly establishes rapport with research participants in any context and is a keen observer during on-the-ground fieldwork. She is always willing and eager to volunteer. She is also a highly skilled moderator and facilitator whether it be immersions, participatory research, in-depth interviews, intercept interviews, co-creation or ideation sessions, both in-person or remote.
Piyathep "Drink" Tanmahasmut, Design Researcher
Piyathep is a down-to-earth, sports-loving applied anthropologist who easily builds rapport with research participants when immersing in cultural contexts and interviewing key informants in the field. His easy-going and straightforward personality makes him easy to get along with. There isn’t much that makes him uncomfortable, which makes him a versatile researcher. He’s actively continuing his education and developing a strong interest in Applied Anthropology, Anthropology of the Future and Design Research.
Phutiset "Mu" Cherchuponglam, Design Researcher
Phutiset is football and manga fan who brings his knowledge of industrial design, user-centered design, and user research to inform the design direction of client’s projects during and after the research is finished. He has been involved in various design projects such as packaging design using agriculture waste, design of home appliances, board game design, and luggage design. He is also well equipped to handle issues related to innovation and product or service value.
Our co-founders
Conifer Research
Conifer Research is a Chicago-based consultancy that specializes in ethnographic and design research to help companies better align their business activities with the real lives of their customers.
They use custom, creative research methods to uncover deep insights into consumer behavior, focusing on solving complex business problems through immersive, human-centered approaches.
Their team combines expertise from diverse fields such as anthropology, psychology, and design to provide actionable insights that drive innovation and foster meaningful change for their clients.
