Todd Zaki Warfel is a designer, serial entrepreneur, craftsman and foodie. He’s the founder and principal designer at messagefirst, a design consultancy focused on helping companies make products and services that are beautiful, useful and a pleasure to use. He’s also the co-founder of Nimbly Apps, who’s flagship product, Reframer, a rockin’ realtime, collaborative, team driven decision app.

Ask Todd what he does for a living and tell you he’s just a designer. He believes design is a holistic practice, a craft, and like any great artisan, he takes great pride in his craft.

Todd has a reputation for being a bit of a foodie and wine enthusiasts. Ask him about the custom walk-in wine locker at his office, which he designed and built himself. If you ever have the chance to go to dinner with him, chances are it will be a gastronomic adventure you won’t soon forget. He also has a professional racing license and hopes to one day get his pilot’s license.

His book, Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide discusses how prototypes are more than just a design tool and shows you how to use prototyping to create a common language, market a product, gain internal buy-in, and test feasibility with your development team. His newest book, Guerrilla Research, co-authored with Russ Unger is due in 2012.