Industrial Design

Look at the Camera and Say “Aaaah”

By Delphine Hirasuna | September 16, 2009September 4, 2014

Modo01

If the Pixar animated robot “Wall-E” was a doctor, this may be what he looks like. Designed by Modo, the maker of specialized carts for the healthcare industry, this unintimidating device goes by the name “Practitioner Cart ™HDX™.” What makes it such a wonder of design is that it houses 14 separate telemedical technology components from Polycom and more than 97 feet of cabling in a footprint that is smaller than an office chair.
Compact enough to fit in a doctor’s small exam room, the Practitioner allows doctors in rural or remote areas to consult with experts from urban research centers. Instead of just describing symptoms, off-site physicians can interact face-to-face with patients. Modo CEO Bob Marchant explains, “In addition to making the equipment responsive, we lowered the video image to a comfortable, conversational height, so the physician’s image and voice are at the level of a seated patient.”

Live digital video and high-speed satellite connections give the offsite doctor the ability to diagnose illnesses in real time, without requiring patients to travel. A high-resolution digital camera can provide close-ups of skin lesions; a digital stethoscope can take heart rate and blood pressure readings, and x-rays can be uploaded for immediate viewing. Modo design manager Goo Sung says that “Using the system is as easy as having a conversation. There is no start-up calibration. You simply turn it on and talk to your doctor. No one wants to wait when their health is at risk.”

Publishing

Creating Inhouse Magazines for the Outside World

By Delphine Hirasuna | September 11, 2009September 4, 2014

CED_cover

Published by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Discoveries focuses a spotlight on the cutting-edge research conducted at the institution. Graphically, the magazine was designed to communicate Cedars-Sinai’s bold, innovative and conceptual thinking.

Over the years corporate magazines (once called “house organs”) have had a home-grown feel that have separated them from “real” consumer publications sold at newsstands. In fact, if they weren’t given out free, most people would not pay to get a copy. What do top-selling magazines do that inhouse publications often don’t? We asked Pentagram’s Kit Hinrichs, @Issue co-founder/design director, and designer of several mainstream magazines, including United Airlines’ Hemispheres, Coastal Living, Exhibitor, and Red Herring as well as publications for countless corporations, museums, cruise lines and institutions, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Discoveries magazine, shown here.

Advertising

PC Fights Fire With Fire

By Delphine Hirasuna | September 9, 2009September 4, 2014

Microsoft is taking the fight back to Apple with a series of commercials, by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, that spoof the Apple ads that spoofed it. The Apple ads, by TBWA/Chiat/Day, feature comedian John Hodgman portraying the sincere but dull office “everyman” extolling the PC while his tech-savvy, youthful friend, “Mac,” played by actor Justin Long, comments good-naturedly. Instead of ignoring the Mac ads and changing the subject, Microsoft found a Hodgman lookalike right in its own office – a program engineer named Sean Siler – and had him protest that Apple has reduced him to a stodgy stereotype in spots titled “I’m a PC”. The witty response, free of the usual corporate-cliche slogans, makes Microsoft seem surprisingly cool. To see one of the Mac ads that started it all, click to the next page.

Advertising

“For A Less Painful World” Brazilian Ad

By Delphine Hirasuna | September 3, 2009September 4, 2014

asprin

From Almap BBDO in Sao Paolo, Brazil, comes these outdoor poster advertisements for Bayer Aspirin. The inspiration of Almap chief creative director Marcello Serpa, art director Marcos Medeiros and illustrator Jose Cortizo Junior, these lushly drawn “Sanskrit” paintings feature a silhouetted man and woman in the traditional meditative lotus pose, with an aspirin used in place of a mystical “third eye” of calm. Outside the inner circle of serenity are vignette scenes of stress – warring kids pulling apart a teddy bear, a teenager banging on his drum set, a dentist by his empty chair, a worker using a jackhammer, a man rubbing his aching neck. The ad won the 2009 Cannes Lion Bronze for Outdoor advertising. Ohm shanti ohm. May you find peace in a chaotic world.

Typography

Making Blackletter Hot!

By Delphine Hirasuna | September 2, 2009September 4, 2014

In an age when the rest of the world has given up on Blackletter typography, also known as Old English or Fraktur lettering style, newspapers haven’t. Newspapers began using Blackletter for their nameplates around the mid-19th century because it printed dark and dense, important when printing on crude groundwood paper. The letter forms also had an air of authority and incontestable truth about them, as if taken from ancient manuscripts hand-drawn by scribes or a bible set with movable type carved by Johannes Gutenberg himself. The Chicago Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and The New York Times are just a few newspapers that set their name in stylized Blackletter. Interestingly, the New York Times “T” Magazine, the ultimate word on contemporary fashion and design, did not try to buck tradition and choose a 21st century font when it began publishing in 2004. Instead, it let artists and designers reimagine its Blackletter “T” logo in their chosen medium. For many of us, the “T” art has become the favorite feature of the magazine.

by Corporate Design Foundation

Month: September 2009