About Me
My name is Donald Rickert, I am a musical instrument designer, inventor, craftsman/maker, musician, luthier, Professional Industrial Designer/Design Researcher with an earned Ph.D. from the George Washington University School of Business (Human Factors/Ergonomics, with a specialization in Usability and related Consumer Research) with post-doctoral training in Ethnographic (Anthropology) research methods. I am also a Professional Industrial Designer (i.e., IDSA) and have taught in the Industrial Design Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology (aka Georgia Tech). I started out as an amateur luthier in 1970 and established myself as a full-time professional luthier in 2007.
I specialize in the design of new (and newly rediscovered) musical instruments, especially “extended” and/or “alternative” range string instruments such as 5-string violins, octave violins, violoncellos da spalla, alto mandolins (5-course mandola), octave mandolins, bouzoukis, citterns and mandocellos. I have also been a semi-finalist in the Guthman Musical Instrument Design competition (2012 and 2013) with some of my completely novel electronic stringed instruments. I have always tended to steer away from “standard” instruments that buyers can get literally anywhere.