Tag: design
Reflections: A Lighting Trend
Having recently been to see the Light show at the Hayward Gallery, London, I am reminded of a trend I am seeing more and more of these days – reflected light. Like the artists in the show, lighting designers have recently been playing with light as the critical source material and focus of an object.
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New Kitchen trends from Ambiente 2013
Ambiente provides new kitchen inspiration every year. While the trend for vivid colour bursts was seen throughout the show by all the major exhibitors, only a few refreshing colour schemes stood out and contrasted with the rest of the products. In this post we take a look at the unique use of colour and texture that caught our eyes and collect some of our thoughts and insights into upcoming kitchen trends.
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CMF Trend: Pop Art – Back with a BOOM!
It may or may not be of any coincidence that the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition currently on at the Tate Modern London seems to coincide with a rival of Pop Art in ‘popular mass culture’. So this got me thinking; where have I seen Pop Art ‘popping’ up and why has it ‘exploded’ into the 21st century?
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Is Art the new Business?
At PDD we were all wowed by the artistry of the Olympics opening ceremony, and marvel at the Manet exhibition currently running at the Royal Academy of Arts – as well as admiring good product design. Hands up those of us who have chosen to buy something, not through necessity or on the basis of cold logic, but because the item exuded style and connected with us emotionally (perhaps in product terms the likes of Apple and Bang & Olufsen exploit this to best advantage)!
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Medical Device Usability Engineering, a first-hand perspective
I’ve only been at PDD a matter of months as a Human Factors and Usability consultant, but to say that my feet have barely touched the ground, would be an understatement. I’ve travelled to four different countries, and observed 100 participants. In this article, I take a look at why going into the field is so important in identifying device development opportunities…
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Using immersion in the hospital environment to identify innovation opportunities
A global medical device company recently approached PDD with a request to identify product innovation opportunities*. Our human-centred approach for such projects typically involves full immersion in the environment of the user and this project was no different. In this post, I will share some of my experiences of working in the hospital environment, the techniques used, and just generally what I enjoyed from my time in the field.
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CMF Trend: Transparent Colour
As we long for sunny spring days the injection of colour in our interiors is increasingly prevalent; an antidote to the grey and white of winter weather. In this post we take a look at an emerging trend in the world of furniture design – colour transparency.
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Good enough to eat
There is a phrase “it looks so good you could eat it”, but are there times where this idea goes a step too far? Or are there lessons to be learnt when it comes to product design? In this post I take a look at the force that is food.
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Wearable Technology
Wearable technology is becoming more common place through products like Nike+, but there are still many questions to be asked about what the future holds and how consumers will accept the ‘new normal’ for wearable technology. Our Principal of Design and Innovation, Oliver Stokes, writes for Techopedia on the future of wearable technology. The full article is available here.
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Three trends to spot in 2013
Our Principal of Design Insight, Maeve Keane, was approached by Second Sight magazine to write about the key trends that she thinks we’ll be seeing in 2013. Here’s what she wrote.
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I ‘heart’ type: My first love…
I’ve been in love with type for quite a while now. Most of my family and friends think my fascination with type is a bit strange, and I even had one boyfriend feel quite threatened by my obsession. So I’ve decided to write five posts which will go through the typographers / designers who have instigated my affection for type, starting with; my first love… Typographica.
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Disgusting Design
The phrase ‘That’s horrible!’ gets used all too often when talking about design work so here are some truly revolting designs that put it all into perspective and maybe even challenge if being horrible is such a bad thing after all.
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One man’s trash in another man’s city
Upcycling has a reputation problem, our ID intern David explores the world of reuse and finds out how urban materials are more valuable than you think.
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Nice design and stuff.
Today’s Nice Design And Stuff is a medley of design, graphic art and leaping bunnies. I’ve really tried not to make this a shopping list for my husband, and to be honest I think most of it will be too expensive anyway, so perhaps this is for a millionaire do-gooder instead. Hello you!
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