Can you fit a real pedal into something this small?
Olinthus, 2023 onward. Sketch, CAD, board layout, tooling, contract manufacturer — the whole path from a silly idea to a successfully selling product.
I take products from concept to production. Twenty-five years across mechanical, electronic and software products — industrial design, project management, design for manufacturing, sourcing and contract manufacturing. I co-founded Olinthus, and I take on outside work for teams that need it.
Selected work
Every one of these started as a question.
Can you give a guitar pedal a backstory?
An illustrated world for the product — characters, a city, and a story told across panels and animation. My partner and I wrote and directed it; the illustration and animation were done by others.
Can you build a world for a music video?
“Omerta” by 22Gz (feat. CoachDaGhost), an animated music video released in 2022. I worked with the lead animator from the start: we planned the concept and the scenes together. I made some of the assets and supported the planning and production; the animation is his. Watch on YouTube ↗
Can you make a power supply beautiful?
I was part of the small team that developed this product. It is one of the mechanical designs I am most proud of. Years later, we are still finding out how many standards we set without meaning to.
Can you make a Eurorack module beautiful?
We wanted our Eurorack modules to feel like the rest of our product line.
Can you make a new product from this?
A typical design challenge: a completely different product that has to fit in the exact same box.
Can you make us some wordmarks and logos?
Some of the logos and wordmarks I have had the pleasure of helping to design over the years.
Can you evoke the look of this old thing in our new one?
If you knew the original, this product had to feel familiar right away.
Can you make us some gift boxes?
Packaging is often an afterthought. It was not one here.
Can you fit all this in a small quick start guide?
When you do want to know how something works, a well-designed guide should give you the answer right away. I take a lot of pride in that.
Can you make us look like the Grateful Dead shopped at REI?
Can I run the air conditioning on sunshine?
A personal project, 2022 onward. Twenty solar panels, most of them bought used, and two EcoFlow Delta Pro battery banks run the house AC off-grid. I added a Micro-Air EasyStart soft starter so the batteries can start the 5-ton air conditioner. Coolio, the controller software, reads both banks every minute and sets the Nest thermostat, so the AC runs on surplus sun and stops before the packs run low. I designed Coolio as a state chart and built it with AI coding agents.
Can you make something to hold this?
Nobody asked for these. I have a passion for making things I find useful around the house — plywood, glue and drywall screws seem to be my medium.
About
Charles EtienneCo-Founder, Olinthus · Los Angeles
Born in Montreal and raised bilingual, I played jazz in New York before heading to Los Angeles to study physics at CSUN. Since then, I’ve spent my time building things meant to be manufactured.
I joined Strymon early on when everyone wore every hat. That dynamic proved to be an incredible opportunity: I had the freedom to dive in, learn and get exposed to every phase of product development. Over my tenure, I grew from weekend repair guy, to mechanical designer, and then eventually being part of the team that made big decisions on the product that we made.
In 2022, I stepped in as CTO, Director of Product Development, at Two Notes Audio Engineering. My focus was bringing cohesion and discipline to the pipeline: I worked on bridging the gap between product development and marketing, grounding the product roadmap in direct customer feedback, and making calls on which initiatives were realistic given our bandwidth and resources.
In 2023 I co-founded Olinthus with Ethan Tufts. We design and build the world’s smallest effects pedals. I take our products from concept through production — CAD, sourcing, compliance and contract manufacturing.
I also experiment with agentic-AI workflows in our own development: LLM agents drive KiCad and FreeCAD through MCP and draft purchase orders, which I review and approve.
I work in English and French, and I hold US, Canadian and EU (Belgian) citizenship.
Experience
- Apr 2023 – present
- Co-Founder — OlinthusLos Angeles, California
- Mar 2022 – Jan 2023
- CTO, Director of Product Development — Two Notes (Orosys SAS)Montpellier, France
- Jun 2011 – Feb 2022
- StrymonMechanical Designer → Senior Mechanical Designer → Industrial Designer · Thousand Oaks, California
- 2007 – 2011
- Engineering Assistant / Repair Technician — Line 6 (Yamaha Guitar Group)Calabasas, California · alongside it, 2009–2011, Project Manager of Ape Advertising Group, my own small company
Contact
Let’s build something together. Contract work, part-time or by the project — whatever fits the problem.
- liegev@gmail.com
- Phone
- 818 399 6992
- linkedin.com/in/liegev ↗
- CV
- PDF ↗
- Music
- charlesetiennemusic.com ↗
© Charles Etienne Design · Los Angeles, California