About
"Kait Schoeck wasn’t really supposed to end up at Microsoft. She had enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2009 with plans to be a painter, or maybe an illustrator. “I didn’t know industrial design actually existed,” she says. That changed in school, where she switched majors and eventually caught Microsoft’s attention. The company liked her unusual portfolio—there wasn’t much in it about computers. Now she’s one of the designers working on Microsoft’s Surface products, helping the company achieve what for decades has seemed impossible: outdesigning Apple. Because Schoeck and her team aren’t bogged down by decades of PC-design baggage, they freely break with convention. And because their desks are a few feet from a machine shop, they can build whatever they dream up. “Being able to hold the products we make—that’s when you really know what works,” Schoeck says. Early in her time at Microsoft, she coinvented the rolling hinge that makes the detachable Surface Book possible; her team has also found ways to make touchscreen laptops feel natural, to build tablets that really can replace your laptop, and to turn the old-school desktop PC into something more like a drawing table. Thanks to designers like Schoeck, Microsoft’s machines aren’t just brainy anymore—they’re beautiful too."
—David Pierce, Wired 2017 Next List May 2017 Issue
Having kick-started her career as a lead designer in the Microsoft Devices Group, Kait has worked to help Microsoft as a brand reposition itself through designing products and product experiences that leave people with a different brand perspective. Working to light up new and innovative Microsoft experiences through flagship hardware with new form factors, Kait took a key role in establishing the devices design groups overall principles and approach to product making, embracing the opportunity to work hand in hand with the software teams to deliver complete experiences. Her passion for hands on prototyping realizes quick opportunities to help solve complex design problems in the early phases fast, and has evolved over time into storytelling through functional prototypes, video creative direction, and CG animation. Inspired about how we think about the future, Kait is also energized by the future of automotive, the potential of space travel and all things robotic. Aside from being a designer/maker by day, she is a creative artist in her free time, painting hyper-realistic portraits with a surreal twist, where she strives to build a true emotional connection between viewer and subject.