The CEO of Gastronaut, the San Francisco catering company serving the likes of Twitter and Pixar, thinks as much about how her food is presented as how it tastes. She doesn’t want to serve their delicious brined short ribs smoked with cherry wood on any common catering platter. But they couldn’t find serving platters that matched their adventurous menu style and that worked for their staff. That’s where I came in. The platters they were using? “Boring or ugly, too deep or two shallow, lots of wasted space,” they said. “And heavy,” they added with emphasis. Their requirements? Stackable, dishwasher-safe, and the ability or order more as their business grows. Count me in.

After a few conversations, I got a sense of their style and needs, and soon delivered a stack of design drawings and some material samples. Together we decided on two geometric shapes, the hexagon and the trapezoid. For the platters pan, we used kitchen-grade stainless steel with unnecessary material removed, adding style and removing weight. The brushed aluminum trim gives the platters strength with little extra weight. The two layers are joined with stainless steel rivets, ground mirror-smooth for easy handling. “Oh my God,” said their CEO when she easily lifted a stack of 12 platters. “These are so light and take up so little space. They’re awesome!”