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The first edition of the « HOO-HA Sensorimix Festival » receives June 12th 2008 in Paris around ten European specialists in sensory and new product development. These speakers shake up the classic sensory methods and go all out to inject them with originality, discrepancy and innovative experience tested on many applications.

Whether you’re a specialist in Design, Marketing, Sensory Evaluation, QC/QA, or R&D, this festival is for you.

Programme: demonstrations, meetings and exchanges around the 5 senses. An out-of-this world trip in the heart of a unique sensory experience!

Download the promotional flyer 

The stories of the past are rooted firmly in our minds. Design has the power to bring the stories of the future to life and to change the path of innovation in the process.

Moving beyond features and functionality

The search for innovation and a detailed product definition often does little to inspire a compelling design. Consumers are interviewed and observed to understand latent needs. The features and functionality of competitor devices and experiences are analyzed in excruciating detail. Forecasts are given of future technologies and limitations in costs and timing are made clear. All of this is summarized in a functional product definition, and then design comes in and must find a way to engage people. It’s the aesthetic add-on to make the product appealing, usable and a good experience.

How do we move beyond features and functionality in a technical world? Many companies face competitors that are their equals in technical expertise. High tech companies known for innovation are forced to move beyond competing solely based on technology. Innovation is now about looking beyond functional comparisons.

Let’s take the very familiar story of the iPhone and Apple as an obvious example of a company that knows how to weave a good story. Frequent introductions and function-heavy products mark the cell phone industry. We all know the problems with these devices and have marveled at the way the iPhone resolves many of these issues.

The iPhone will inevitably come up in a conversation with a technology company. They will analyze the functionality, discuss what they might be able to copy and what Apple didn’t get quite right, but will ultimately fail to realize that the success of this product is due to the overall story that is told through the brand and the user experience. To copy this kind of strategy by simply adding a few features without considering the overall story does not lead to innovation and market success.

Creating a compelling story

The urge to compete at a functional level often displaces the importance of creating a compelling story that connects with consumers higher level needs and desires. Many companies find themselves looking to the next product introduction without articulating a larger strategy. These short-term goals serve to excuse managers from creating a vision for the story they want to tell with their own products — a story that articulates the emotions that will drive consumer decisions.

Designers naturally empathize with users; understanding their needs and desires. Before we become immersed in the product definition, let’s take some time to understand what stories might have personal meaning for consumers. From this base understanding and framing of the opportunity, we can develop designs and strategies that bring stories to life. We must, of course, satisfy consumers’ basic functional needs; but to truly win them over we must move beyond and connect with them at an emotional level.

Filter Design is the first Romanian independent design competition, which identifis and promotes young designers, the educational component and practice experience being its most important values.

At its second edition, Filter Design takes place between February 21st and April 19th. The competition addresses to young people, aged 18 – 30, invited to compete for one of the following: graphic design, industrial design, auto design, packaging design and freestyle.

The competition will take place on-line - www.filterdesign.ro. The application for preselection phase for graphic design, industrial design and auto design takes place between February 21st and March 14th. After the preselection phase judged by a jury made up of Romanian and international design specialists, the finalists will have to resolve the final themes between March 21st and April 12th. The briefs for all five trials offer themes execution details and can be found on-line.

Filter Design benefits of presence of well-known international designers: Dick Powell, one of the most awarded European designers (Designer and Founder Seymour Powell), Ben Terrett (Graphic Designer and Founder The Design Conspiracy) and Nicolas Chiuchindel (Designer Chanel). They will hold conferences and thematic workshops on subjects such as: „Design profitability in business”, „How to become a successful designer”, „Graphic design”, „Industrial design”.

Total prizes of the competition top 20.000 euro in money, ADOBE licenses and internships in design agencies from Romania and Great Britain.

Enter the competition on www.filterdesign.ro. The website offers complete info on conferences, workshops, jury, prizes and rules.

Filter Design will end on April 19th with a special event announcing the winners of the five trials.

Contact info: trece-ti contactele ☺

It would be a shame to keep a beautiful object, a work of artistry, constantly under wraps for the fear of ruining it. When it comes to my phone, I don’t want to muddle the design by covering it up. I like the way the controls and finishes feel in my hands. To me, covering it implies that I am embarrassed about my phone, or that my usage is so callous I could ruin it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect my phone to last forever, just to weather well before the end of my annual contract. Perhaps there are avenues worth exploring that could allow consumer electronics to age gracefully.

Things like quality furniture or jeans can actually look and feel better with age, introducing a dignified look that comes naturally with wear. I wonder if it’s possible for consumer devices to move past plastics and embrace materials such as leather or denim. This is already happening to create visual or tactile appeal. Concepts have been proposed for laptops with leather detailing and wood grain finishes. However, I think it would be interesting to consider using these types of materials specifically with regard to wearing. While some surfaces or details need to be scratch resistant, other areas do not, creating an opportunity for wear to become part of the appeal.

A big part of the success of a product comes from creating an emotional connection with it. While part of this connection comes from personalizing design, much of it comes from usage. Users today can customize portions of the design according to their taste. Why not consider personalization before the time of purchase? If finishes were meant to leverage patterns of usage and wear, it could be possible to create unique ‘fingerprints’ that tell an indelible story of the life of the product. Take industrial metals as an example. A phone devised of copper, zinc or steel would wear naturally just as those made of soft materials. Because of these wear-friendly materials, each and every phone would be one of a kind based solely on usage. Having something that is uniquely yours solidifies an emotional bond, creating a deeper relationship with the product.

Like works of art, well-designed products have a beauty that should not be hidden. There have always been skins for products – there always will be. If consumers do choose to dress up their device with things like charms, socks or tattoos, it should result from a bond with the product or a desire to make a personal statement. Accessories should exist to enhance design, not to cover up its shortcomings. I can’t imagine Leonardo da Vinci being happy should someone decide to laminate the Mona Lisa just to protect it.

Don’t miss your chance for immortality!

Only ONE MORE WEEK left to enter the One Show Design competition and earn a place in the One Show Design Annual, the benchmark for design professionals everywhere.

With an international jury of award winning creative directors and designers, One Show Design sets the standard for creative excellence in design communications.

To download a Call for Entries PDF, including the full list of categories, go to http://www.enteroneshow.org .

View One Show Design Judges

Enter Your Work

This is the moment for applause and a milestone for our industry, but it is not an end. In fact, for the first time, our industry is having a hard time seeing the future. The basic process of design (define, design and deliver) works well when we explore new products and new categories that are ripe for innovation. However, when the product cycle continues at its relentless pace, we are often left to design something new without actually having much old to study and improve.

It is during these times that we seem to get stuck on an industry style. Whether it’s streamlining or more recent variations on the black and silver waterfall, these blanket styles can have a positive effect (consumer acceptance), but can also be very risky. If we’re all pursuing the same thing, and often relying on the same tools and trends, what value are we adding to the product?

The point is this: by relinquishing a design to the same vernacular that currently exists in the market, we are negating the positive effects that design can create by building an emotional connection with the consumer. We are, in essence, eliminating much of the risk a product faces (by bringing it up to par), but we’re also leaving the success of the product up to all of the things we don’t control such as manufacturing, pricing, marketing and the retail environment itself.

In a sea of sameness, even well executed products can be ignored because the differentiation of the details is challenging for consumers. So why not stand out? Why not depart from what’s expected in the market place? Why not fill the shelves with variety (if we must fill them at all)?

What do I want to do?

Saturate the Niches

Let’s recognize the power of smaller markets. We all want a single solution that is guaranteed to work, but this rarely inspires consumers to emotionally connect with products, and ignores the atomization that has vastly changed the consumer population. The mass market is hemorrhaging, and the many niche markets in its wake add up to a lot of customers when their populations are combined. Furthermore, these markets have something even better - passionate consumers. If you can only build it once, make a framework not a product, and leave hooks for people to add and adapt the product to suit them. Let’s create separate products for the young and old, energetic and conservative, allowing each of them to have what it is they most desire. Let’s prevent one group’s limitations or bias from affecting another’s.

Venture capitalists know this already. They invest modestly in a variety of companies and industries, then let the return from the successful ones make up for small losses due to the failures. By opening up their focus to variety instead of a single approach, they have a much safer investment, but they also get to learn a great deal and cross pollinate their other endeavors (which may be even more valuable than the initial return). This is the basic seed that helps consultancies stay fresh and agile, and we should apply it to how we develop products and ideas as well.

The story of Carpe Diem is a great example of this process at work. When Dietrich Mateschitz started Red Bull, he foresaw the workaholic culture of the 1980’s and thought about how it would mutate into the extreme culture of the 1990’s. He found a drink while traveling that was a perfect compliment to this lifestyle and set up Red Bull in 1984. The exceptional part of this story is that he didn’t become obsessed with creating Red Bull 2.0, but instead looked past the success, and theorized the eventual backlash to the extreme (ie, slow food, organics, etc.). So while Red Bull was reaching its strongest sales, he was pushing out into new ventures with an herbal drink steeped with ancient ingredients. The man that was first sponsoring bungee jumping and the Flugtag, now finds his new brand hosting rooftop evening yoga sessions and low key art events in small European towns.

Have Fun with Style

As designers, we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that some projects will use styling to connect emotionally with consumers. If we are forced to update products based on cycles and shopping seasons, then let’s have some fun and really push for new styles instead of relying on the tried and true of the moment (think black, silver, and material thickness, waterfalls, etc). Let’s bring some differentiation and adventure back into products. Let’s make five colors instead of one. Let’s try three form factors instead of one or two, and let the market weigh in on our best guesses.

Be Green(er)

Let’s try to find greener ways to allow for variety and adaptability without increasing waste and creating landfill. Consumers will form deeper connections with products that appeal to their value systems. Let’s allow products to age and grow, learn and adapt. Could we update products less frequently and augment them with a variety of services instead?

We are living in a world saturated by ‘design’, and we need to make sure we’re being effective champions for consumers, their desires, and that we’re connecting them emotionally to the products they use. If we simply apply the style of the day to each and every product, we are eliminating any emotional connection that people might create with a product. By taking advantage of niche markets, narrowly targeted products, fun and interesting styles and materials, and always pursuing greener answers to problems, we are driving toward a new and exciting direction in design; a direction full of variety.

Being “always on” I can’t help but wonder if there is a point where too much design could compromise other qualities of our daily lives. Wouldn’t it be mutually beneficial to find a better sense of balance?

If we take a look at how we spend our time, about two-thirds of it is spent at work. As designers our job is to create unique experiences for all sorts of target groups; building relationships and business success for our clients. We match beautiful hardware solutions with intuitive and exciting UI and much more. So, what does the other one-third of the pie look like - our personal home-sweet-home?

At my place, a perfectly working Mr.Coffee machine recently made way for Jasper’s slick brew tool by Rowenta. The Mr.Coffee version was approached with the “design by the square inch” mentality; the more options and buttons, the better my experience. True to a certain degree. Rowenta’s brewer looks fantastic, sleek, simple, is a feast for the eyes and also makes good coffee – all with just one button, on/off. For the sake of beautiful design we have lost one of our favorite features, the auto-timer for our morning coffee. Now I have to walk downstairs, turn it on and wait – life can play you hard.

Our well-designed discomfort does not end in the kitchen. Ever since I was young, I’ve loved Corbusier’s LC2 line. Now we have the set up and have ditched our very nice looking and super comfortable other couch to make room. The old couch included a great slouch bonus, decreasing blood circulation and therefore enhancing our movie and chill-out experience. Now we sit almost upright; great for entertaining, but impossible to rest comfortably for a TV marathon - just in case you’ve just finished a great book and feel like being lazy.

I’ve come to realize that balance is indeed a necessity, but at the same time is entirely subjective. People have different ways of expressing their personalities and breadth of emotions through design. Home-sweet-home is really about living out the little dreams you want to achieve piece by piece in order to enjoy your own time. In the end it’s not about the objects themselves, but about finding balance between what you love and how you live.

Read the official press release below:

Nopiun… interactive communication and direct marketing, launches the new Hotel Cram website. It is an interactive experience that lets users express their emotions through personalized emoticons, which are then used as statistical information to colour the hotel’s façade through a long-life lighting system. Hotel Cram’s website users can visually surf the whole website and leave personalized emoticons describing how they are feeling at the moment anywhere on the images. All the information is collected in a database that is linked to the façade’s computerized lighting system, which lights up the hotel’s exterior with the predominating colour of the emotions the users generate. Although participation is open to the general public (www.hotelcram.com), the website is also accessible from all the hotel rooms through an audiovisual system connected to Internet.

This project’s goal was to create an exceptional experience with a strong emotional component for the Hotel Cram, which would give the hotel a unique personality which would differentiate it from the rest of the vanguard hotels in Barcelona. The idea is for the audience to have very direct and emotional contact with the hotel from the start. From the point of view of communication, the website has two possible perspectives. One that is based on the users’ need to look for a specific practical appraisal, such as hotel availability or hotel location and the other, from a more emotional perspective that is inspired by the setting, environment, sensations and so on.

More info: www.nopiun.com/prensa/hotelcram/hceng.html

This is how it works

1) You enter the website

2) You browse through the website and whenever you like, you leave feedback about your emotional state and experience of the space (or anything in it) that you are looking at.

3) All emotions that have been added that day together change the facade of the hotel: it shows the color that symbolises the ‘emotion of the day’.

Visit the website here >>>

The International Conference on Design & Emotion is a forum where practitioners, researchers and industry meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion.

Design and Emotion - Dare to Desire

Our relationship with the world is affective, and all human-product interactions are coloured with emotion. The last ten years, design science has shown an increasing interest in this emotional impact of product design. And although this has stimulated some valuable attempts to formalize and model design emotions, we must not loose sight of the fact that emotion is holistic and an effect of the overall quality of the product or service, and the universal, cultural, and personal values of the user. It sometimes almost seems as if emotion has become just one of the many design demands. So that is why this year we say ‘dare to desire’ - dare to surrender to the multifaceted behavioural, mental, expressive, and physical phenomena we call emotion. Good design is desirable design, and design for emotion is not about products and services that feel good, but about products and services that make us feel great.