Hasta La Ideas

Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Mammogram Machine used specifically for Stereotactic Breast Biopsies

With a family history of breast cancer and a recent graduate of The University of Notre Dame’s ID program, Charlotte Lux embarked on improving Stereotactic Breast Biopsies. For those without an MD this critical procedure for breast cancer is used to locate a benign or cancerous growth. As beneficial as this procedure is, it often is uncomfortable and stressful for the patient; often requiring patients to lay still for up to 60 minutes during examination. Charlotte Lux took notice of this and sought to improve it through her Core77 Design Award winning design solution.

Getting diagnosed with breast cancer can be a traumatic experience. In this research and design project, ethnographic methods were used to define opportunities for improving the delivery of care in one particularly difficult diagnostic procedure—stereotactic biopsy. These solutions work in harmony to facilitate less traumatic diagnostic experiences, enabling patients to begin the journey through breast cancer with as positive an outlook as possible.

Charlotte Lux throughly analyzed and observed the entire medical procedure. You can see her presentation here.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

I was skimming through articles on Core77 when I saw the announcement of winners. It’s such an honor to have my project recognized!

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

As a conceptual research and design project, my hope was to add to the current movement aimed at changing the way healthcare practitioners and medical equipment manufacturers approach the delivery of care, using the stereotactic breast biopsy experience as an example. To that end, I’ve shared this work with a few breast care clinicians and a representative from a medical equipment manufacturer. Bringing these design solutions to fruition would require further product development work.

During the examination the patient is often alienated. Lux offers ways to counter this alienation and improve the system overall.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

To immerse myself in the patient experience, I spent time in a number of hospitals over the course of a year–observing procedures, talking to patients and clinicians. Not having a medical background, I knew seeing the blood and very large needles would take some getting used to. But it was surprising how little that bothered me and how much more difficult it was seeing patients go through something as physically and emotionally trying as this cancer diagnostic procedure. The hardest thing for me was not only watching these women go through this, but the lack of closure I was able to get on each observed case. Patients received their results days after being screened and, not wanting to jeopardize privacy, I never learned of their results. Being left to wonder “whatever happened to that patient?” proved to be more emotionally draining that I had anticipated.

What was an “a-ha” moment from this project?

The biggest a-ha moment for me was the realization of how critical the patient’s role is in the biopsy procedure. Describing the process, every nurse, surgeon, and x-ray technologist talks about how important it is for patients to remain still while they isolate what is often a tiny lesion in the breast using x-ray imaging and targeting it with a needle. The patient lies on her stomach, which doesn’t sound so bad. But in observing this myself and talking with patients while they lay with one breast compressed between two plates through an opening in the hard table, I began to realize how difficult and important their job really is. Not wanting to complain, many patients tell the nurse they’re comfortable when they really aren’t. After 30, 40, and sometimes up to 60 minutes of lying completely still, it takes a toll on their ribs, neck, and back, and they fidget, which can cause tissue damage and unnecessary radiation exposure when x-rays need to be retaken. So, it became apparent that patients need to be empowered to communicate and work with clinicians so they are as comfortable as possible. This realization drove design solutions that facilitate patient control over comfort and uninterrupted interaction with clinicians.

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Over the next few weeks we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards 2012! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Eco-distillery, salt water to fresh drinking water in a day.

This year’s Professional Winner for Social Impact by Gabriele Diamanti, “Eliodomestico” is an improvement over current water filtration system. As we wrote on Core77 when we first learned about the project, the simple, straight forward construction keeps production costs down and is made from readily available materials. In addition Diamanti himself promotes innovation and modification of “Eliodomestico” to further its beneficial attributes.

Eliodomestico is an open-source eco-distiller, running on solar power, to provide safe drinking water for people in developing countries. It’s a very simple way to produce freshwater, starting from sea or brackish water. The device produces 5 liters daily, through a direct solar-powered distillation process. Eliodomestico works without filters nor electricity, and requires minimal maintenance.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

It was 1pm here in Italy so I was having my lunch break looking at the live jury announcements on the award website. I was so excited that I decided to switch the audio off and follow the results on twitter!

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

During the summer I’ll have the opportunity to test it further thanks to the many sunny days and with the help of some people who have fallen in love with this project. I have a huge list of people and organizations to say thanks to, many whom will help me in the up and coming stages. I’m always looking for collaborators, because this project needs a big effort to become widely known and produced by the local craftsmen. I hope I’ll also have the opportunity to start some production personally in the field. I need to take a closer look at the production issues, to refine the process.

Materials like terracotta and clay allow for local production.

What was an “a-ha” moment from this project?

When I made the very first prototype, I created an experiment to test if the steam could be forced down through the pipe or not. So I put a bottle of water under the evaporator with the end of the pipe, 5cm under the water level. When I saw the pipe end bubbling in the water, I was very happy. In that moment I understood that my insights were correct, and I kept following the path…

Diagram of distillation process, no mechanical or moving parts.

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Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

THAT NEW DESIGN SMELL

Designer: Michele Champagne
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Category: Visual Communication
Award: Professional Winner

That New Design Smell is a design criticism magazine based on dialogue rather than monologue. It experiments with open content production where criticism engages an active online public at thatnewdesignsmell.net and then the dialogue is edited into a printed magazine.

The magazine began as a thesis proposal at Rietveld Academie’s Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam with the objective of thwarting design’s mandatory optimism, lame designer lingo and ‘likedy-like’ mafia. While there are several obvious approaches to infusing critical thinking in design, some are too easily dismissed. More monologues from professionals are known to be ignored. Academics used to own criticism, but now—with blogs and forums—it belongs to everyone. Yet, more often than not, design blogs are short, shallow and trite. Professional blogs may be smarter, but their public relations are too obvious.

As an alternative, That New Design Smell introduces an independent venue for design criticism and dialogue in a post-medium fashion—it offers a dirty yet diligent dialogue online and a batterie-free product in print.

Champagne questions the multi-million dollar budget for Toronto’s G20 World Summit and the mysterious black-masked vandals.

How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

The news of jury recognition came from an email from Core77 staff (Sarah).

What’s the latest news or development with your project?

That New Design Smell is developing a business plan to continue post-studies. The trickiest part is the revenue model. Since the magazine is dedicated to critical-thinking—which requires independent-thinking—we are seeking an independent revenue model. When it comes to claims of independence in publishing, we say “follow the money.” Ideally, we would operate without special interests involved—whether advertising, corporate sponsors or government subsidies. That said, the traditional revenue models for magazine are advertising-driven and no real alternative currently exists. More contemporary models break with tradition but often leave contributors undervalued and unpaid, like with Huffington Post for example. In order to provide a meaningful and paid platform for our contributors, we’re juggling with a variety of models right now—from crowdsourcing to merchandizing, from non-profit to cooperative corporation models. This is the latest development.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

When That New Design Smell won first place for Student Prize Graphic Design 2011 from the Graphic Culture Foundation in Holland, comments from the jury provided an invaluable lesson in design and in how design awards typically work. The jury thought the concept and media model were fantastic, as was the need for such a project to exist. They thought the magazine was “not pretty” however. But since the magazine was communicating disgrace, the “not pretty” factor was considered a plus. This was the first time I came face-to-face with aesthetes that were open-minded and not stuck in stylistic traps according to their own taste. It reminded me that design could succeed by being more than simplistic likes and dislikes.

What was an “a-ha” moment from this project?

There were two a-ha moments for That New Design Smell. The first was when Arial was chosen as the only typeface. This made everything conceptually-driven in the name of “disgrace.” It also made typesetting much simpler. The second a-ha moment was when the pan-media model was embraced. Rather than pontificating about print vs web, the magazine decided to embrace any media on which design dialogue could happen—from print to web, video, songs, events and performances. Following this, each piece was looked at individually for what it could do best: the web could afford a public feedback loop, print could afford a rich reading experience, events could afford intimate experiences, and so on.

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We are live for the Soft Goods category for the Core77 Design Awards! Michael DiTullo, M Coleman Horn and Greg McNamara are announcing their winning selections from San Francisco. Tune in now to hear directly from the jury and participate in our design celebration!

PROFESSIONAL
Winner
Maxi-Cosi Pria 70

Runner-Up
Landscape Blanket

Notables
Ali’I Ekolu
N12.bikini
Interactive Fashion INTIMACY 2.0

STUDENT
Winner
Whaletale

Runner-Up
Allayant – A shirt with built-in back support for paramedics
Rooster

Notables
SAP
VEE Bag
Elefanti
R-Mano glove
A Place For My Stuff
Strong Arm Lifting Safety Garment

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Jury Team from L to R: Michael DiTullo, Chirs Gadway, Greg McNamara, M Coleman Horn

Over the next week, we will be giving you a 24-hour 72-hour reminder to set your clocks for the live broadcast of this year’s Core77 Design Awards winners for each category. Please note, that all broadcast times and dates are Eastern Time.

Jury Captain

MICHAEL DITULLO
Chief Design Officer, DEI Holdings
As Chief Design Officer of DEI Holdings, Michael DiTullo is passionate advocate as well as experienced practitioner of design. In addition to his work at DEI he is a contributor for the well-known design resource, Core77.com. He lectures at corporations, universities and conferences on the effect, value and how too’s of design. Prior to DEI Michael was Creative Director at the legendary frog design, where he lead teams that worked with Google, Motorola, Honda, Braun, Brooks, Harmon Kardon and Intel. Before frog, DiTullo spent nearly a decade developing several product collections at Nike Inc from advanced concept to production and started his career at Evo Design where he worked for a wide array of clients. DiTullo holds a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and also studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His work has garnered international awards and has been featured in many media outlets and publications.

He lives in the Russian Hill area of San Francisco with his wife Kristina who is a visual artist and their dog Louie who is spoiled. He draws stuff from the future….

Jury Team

CHRIS GADWAY
Creative Director at The North Face
As Creative Director for The North Face, Chris leads Global Creative Strategy, Product Design and Innovation Platform execution including design strategy for the technical mountaineering collection, Summit Series. Chris is a former Nike Global Creative Director and has had the opportunity to work with brands such as Apple Computer and Amazon.com, as well as frog design and Pentagram. Chris founded the influential travel goods and apparel brand ANT-ID in collaboration with the Japanese trading giant, Itochu International. This eclectic collection of high design, high function, soft-goods became a cult favorite in global fashion centers and could be found at Barneys NY and Beams Tokyo. Chris’ work has been selected by Collette, Paris.

M COLEMAN HORN
Creative Director and Founder at PHYLA, Inc.
With 15 years of experience working in soft good product-design & development, Coleman has a strategic focus on the process of getting it built, on time and to budget. Having worked with Nike, Polo, Gravis, Nixon and owning MEDIUM and VAEL; Coleman blends a specific entrepreneurial background combining product development and business acumen. Specializing in the wholesale sector with expertise in identifying new business opportunities, Coleman conceptualizes and generates soft goods through hands on product development, usually at the factory level. With a solid foundation in industrial design and client relationships; his newest ventures PHYLA and CLOVEN deliver more quality work.

GREG MCNAMARA
Principal at Formant Studios
Always finding himself drawn to “sculpture in motion” from an early age, he toyed around with the idea of becoming a car designer before discovering his interest in footwear. Working for apparel brands like The North Face & New Balance, he designed running shoes and new technology concepts; while continuing to develop a keen interest in dynamic forms and biomechanical systems. Believing in human-centered, high performance objects, he has been working to create livable, exciting objects that reflect the desire of the user to push farther, and go faster.

Seeking out new ways to blur the lines between design and emotion, technology and fashion, he founded Formant Studios in 2011; a collaborative design studio with broad experience designing for the consumer electronics, automotive, and fashion industries. Formant has worked on projects with Chris Bangle, HTC, Astro Studios and Proef. Greg is now leading design for Sol Republic, an emerging lifestyle electronics company in San Francisco.

Special thanks to the incredible jury team who worked on judging this year’s SOFT GOODS category!

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