Yves Béhar

Early life and career

Béhar was born in 1967 in Lausanne, Switzerland to a German mother, Christine Behar and a Sephardic Jewish and Turkish father, Henry Behar.

He studied drawing and industrial design in both Europe and the United States. Béhar attended school in Lausanne, Switzerland and at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. In 1991, he received a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from the Art Center College of Design.

Prior to founding Fuseproject, Yves was design leader at the Silicon Valley offices of frog design and Lunar Design, developing product identities for clients such as Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Silicon Graphics.

In 1999, Béhar founded the San Francisco and New York based industrial design and brand management firm Fuseproject. At Fuseproject, Béhar oversees product design for a variety of industrial sectors, including fashion, lifestyle, sports and technology. His clients include Herman Miller, PUMA, One Laptop per Child, Jawbone, Kodak, See Better to Learn Better, General Electric, Swarovski, Samsung, Jimmyjane, and Prada. In 2010, Fuseproject was the top winner of the Industrial Designers Society of America IDSA IDEA/Fast Company awards with 14 winning products.

He is the chief industrial designer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC's) XO laptop, signing on with the project in 2005 and has been with the team since March 2006. This collaboration has led to two additional laptop prototypes, the OLPC XOXO and OLPC XO-3.

From 2005-2012, he was chair of the Industrial Design Program at California College of the Arts.

Béhar's work has been featured in museums and exhibitions around the world, including at the Mudac, Design Miami, and in the permanent collection at MoMA, and SFMoMA, where Béhar is currently sitting on the Board of Trustees.

Design ventures

Béhar is a member of the Founder's Circle of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

Béhar is the Chief Creative Officer of the wearable technology company, Jawbone. He designs the Jawbone brand, packaging, communications and products. Behar designed the JAMBOX and BIG JAMBOX, a family of completely wireless, bluetooth compact audio speakers and also the UP, Jawbone's app-powered health and wellness wristband. Béhar collaborated with ceft and company new york for the Jawbone headset visuals.

He is the chief industrial designer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC's) XO laptop, signing on with the project in 2005 and has been with the team since March 2006. This collaboration has led to two additional laptop prototypes, the OLPC XOXO and OLPC XO-3.

In 2009, he collaborated with Ethan Imboden of Jimmyjane on a line of waterproof rechargeable vibrators.

He also partners with Peel, a company that created an app and hardware to turn mobile devices into universal television remotes. Other investment and partner companies include Mint Cleaner, and Herman Miller.

In June 2012, Yves Behar and Ouya partnered to create an open, hackable game platform. The initiative launched on Kickstarter and raised over $8.5 million with over 63,000 backers. In 2012 SodaStream International teamed with Béhar to introduce Source, a new home soda machine designed with a special emphasis on sustainability.

In October 2015, Béhar and Movado announced a design collaboration, beginning with the Movado Edge; this is the first design partnership for the brand since the launch of their original Museum Dial watch in 1947.

Béhar launched the world's first smart bassinet with Dr. Harvey Karp in October 2016, utilizing robotic technology to simulate the 5 S technique detailed in Happiest Baby on the Block.

Civic works

Béhar is a sustainability advocate who argues that a designer's role is to create products that are both commercially viable and contribute to social good.

He collaborates with clients to design and implement sustainable projects. As the chief industrial designer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC's) XO laptop, Béhar designed a series of low-cost, low-power laptops for distribution to low-income schoolchildren. The impact of OLPC on developing countries was so great that Uruguay purchased approximately 1,000,000 OLPC devices, and Rwanda has included an image of the OLPC XO notebook on their new currency. In 2008, Béhar redesigned the NYC Condom logo and packaging, as well as NYC Condom vending machines for the New York City Department of Health as a part of an initiative to reduce HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy.

Béhar designed eyeglasses for the "Ver Bien para Aprender Mejor" (in English "See Better to Learn Better") program. "Ver Bien para Aprender Mejor" has provided free pairs of custom-designed eyeglasses to students throughout Mexico since 2010. In May 2011, Béhar partnered with Tipping Point, a San Francisco-based philanthropic organization, who made a pledge to the "See Well to Learn" program, which aims to distribute free pairs of glasses to San Francisco Bay Area students.

Additionally, Béhar is the only designer to have received two Index: Awards, with an additional nomination for his design of Puma's "Clever Little Bag."

Béhar is also the principal designer of the SPRING Accelerator programme created by the Nike Foundation, Girl Effect, USAID and DFID. The programme takes 18 entrepreneurs annually whose businesses provide products or services that directly impact the lives of adolescent girls living in poverty worldwide. The first cohort launched in June 2015, with entrepreneurs from Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Yves Béhar and fuseproject provide hands-on design support for the businesses, including brand identity, product design, interactive design, and service/business modeling - working directly with adolescent girls in order to maximize impact and scalability.

Personal life

Béhar has four children; Sky (born 2007) from a prior relationship and Sylver (born 2011), Soleyl (born 2014), and Saylor (born 2016) with his fiancee Sabrina Buell. His children all have the letter Y in their name to honor his father, Henry.

Recognitions