Job title: Doorknob designer

Companies that hire them: Only a handful of U.S. companies, including Nanz, design contemporary custom hardware. There are, however, smaller shops around the country that specialize in restoration and creating replicas.

How to find out about openings: Search the job listing boards at the Industrial Design Society of America’s website.

How much you can earn: A mid- to senior-level designer can expect to earn between $75,000 and $100,000.

Useful skills: A background in industrial design and an engineering degree. Also, having experience working with architects is a plus.

Number of jobs in the U.S.: The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there were about 6,000 specialty design jobs in 2004. So the number of doorknob designers is significantly smaller than that.

For many professionals, it’s all about getting your foot in the door. But for Ryan Hale, 32, it’s opening the door that holds the most fascination.

The director of product development for Nanz, a hardware maker, Hale designs custom doorknobs, hinges, locks, and all the other pieces that transform a slab of wood into a door. Nanz’s designs can be found in the homes of celebrities who have hired prominent architects and designers such as Alan Wanzenberg, Victoria Hagan, and Peter Marino. “We have high-profile architects and clients wanting very strange things, and you have to figure out ways to make them actually work,” Hale says. “We very rarely tell someone we can’t do something.”

Hale creates knobs for almost any architectural style, from contemporary to rococo. Virtually everything is designed at the company’s offices in New York’s Soho neighborhood. Drawing boards have given way to digital tools, including a 3-D modeling system that enables Hale and his small team to refine intricate designs on-screen. Rather than simply producing blueprints, Hale uses a special computer-controlled machine to create life-size plastic prototypes.

Once approved by Nanz’s clients—mostly architects and the occasional homeowner—the designs are sent to the company’s factory in Brooklyn. There, the final gold, silver, and nickel touches are applied, and any necessary hand hammering or other refinements a client has requested are completed.

Customization doesn’t come cheap. A typical project can run anywhere from $25,000 to $150,000, depending on the materials and number of doors involved. The most expensive doorknobs, which are made in small quantities, can cost several thousand dollars each.

Where does Hale draw inspiration for the 15 to 20 doorknobs he comes up with each month? When he’s not collaborating with architects or Carl Sorenson, Nanz’s founder, Hale turns to organic forms like seashells, beehives, leaves, or even eggs.

Doorknob designing in Soho is a far cry from working amid the suit-filled hallways of Ford and Emerson Electric, where Hale started his career after studying engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla. But designing car engines and humidifiers just wasn’t creative enough for him. “In the corporate world, you’re cutting every corner to try to make costs,” Hale says, “Here, it’s ‘Get it right and make it perfect.’ ”

How a Typical Piece Is Designed

Step one: A photograph of an organic or industrial form—a zeppelin, say, or a street grate—is used as a jumping-off point for designing a new product.

Step two: Hale and his team use 3-D software to design a model.

Step three: A plastic prototype is created with the help of a computer-controlled tool that can carve up to eight knobs a night.

Step four: Final design and material tweaks are made.

Step five: Once the piece is approved, it is either shipped to the client or added to the company’s catalog of more than 3,000 doorknobs.