Category: Product Design

Industrial Design

A Film Celebrating Industrial Design

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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From Gary Hustwit, the independent filmmaker of the award-winning “Helvetica,” comes a new documentary on industrial design. “Objectified” explores the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. A stellar lineup of the world’s most talented industrial designers talk about how they re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. “Objectified” is a look at personal expression, identity, consumerism and sustainability. It is currently screening at film festivals, cinemas and special events worldwide. Check here to see where it is showing in your part of the world: www.objectifiedfilm.com.

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Product Design

Sprinkles: Not Your Mommy’s Cupcakes

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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Describing a cupcake as sophisticated may seem like an oxymoron, but in the case of Sprinkles, it applies. Long the favorite finger food of preschoolers, cupcakes aren’t just for kids anymore. In fact, everything about Sprinkles defies how we think of cupcakes, beginning with the fact that the flagship cupcake-only bakery café got its start in upscale Beverly Hills.

When founder Candace Nelson and her husband decided to establish a cupcake business using all-natural, high-quality ingredients, they brought in Austrian modernist architect Andrea Lenardin Madden to design the shop and provide creative direction on everything from the retail displays and packaging to the look of the cupcake. Lenardin Madden avoided cutesy kids’ décor and designed an environment with the exclusive feel of a chocolate truffle shop or a Eurostyle cafe, with white oak paneling and wire bar stools for the window-facing counter eating area.

The cupcakes themselves were made to appeal to adults, with flavors like chai latte, ginger lemon and the wildly popular red velvet. Color-coded wafer dots on the swirled icing of each cupcake identify the flavor – an ID system carried out on the printed flavor cards too.

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Product Design

Think Again: The Hospital Gown

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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Style and aesthetics don’t even enter the conversation when it comes to the hospital gown, a garment that only someone too sick to protest would agree to wear. “It makes you feel more naked and exposed than when you’re actually naked,” says one former patient. Another claims, “They’re put on patients to cow them and make them compliant.”

What’s obvious is that hospital gowns were designed only for medical convenience, with no thought to fashion or the dignity of the wearer. They are purposely thin to keep patients from overheating. Made of cotton so they can be sterilized by washing in boiling water. Loose and shapeless, so medical staff can check vital signs quickly and protect any sutures from rubbing. And open in the back for injections and trips to the bathroom.

This is a garment that flatters no one – and certainly not a person who is deathly ill. The hospital gown ranks No. 1 in things that need to be redesigned. We invite you to nominate others that should be added to this list.