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We are delighted to announce that the Rollei Fotoliner Oceanpro backpack designed in collaboration with PDD has won a Red Dot award 2022 in the category of product design.

Rollei are leaders in photography, catering to professionals and photo enthusiasts around the world for over 110 years. As part of their strategy to adapt to the demand of environmental conscious professionals in the world of imagery, Rollei approached PDD looking to expand its range into high-end peripheral products: camera bags and accessories.

Functional and versatile, the PhotoLiner Ocean Pro optimizes ergonomics and high-end materials to support nature lovers as they picture our world. By using genuine and certified ocean plastics for most materials, the backpack also actively contributes to protect the nature photographers love to capture.

Determined to create a standout product in a very competitive category, the teams at Rollei and PDD set out to uncover the needs of environment-conscious photographers venturing outdoors. The result is a state-of-the-art camera backpack that accommodates the needs of professional photographers, whilst offering flexibility and a high degree of personalization – with easy-to-locate zippers, and flexible compartments.

Since you are here, take a look at some of the other award winning projects we have worked on in the Consumer sector.

PDD and Tri-Star Design announced today a new partnership that will accelerate innovation, design and development for a rapidly expanding digital healthcare market.

Founded in 1991, Tri-Star Design collaborates with innovative high-tech companies to provide turn-key design and development services. As a recognised leader in portable point-of-care and wearable physiological monitoring technology and devices, their team of mechanical, electrical and software engineers lead projects from concept development to finished solutions.

PDD, the product and experience innovation consultancy, has been delivering meaningful innovation in healthcare for over 40 years. Driven by contextual research to understand the needs of patients and healthcare professionals, their team translates insights into design solutions that, through prototyping, rigorous validation, and testing, deliver commercial success and improve people’s lives.

The integrated team, based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, includes researchers, UX/UI designers, mechanical, electrical and software engineers with diverse backgrounds and recognised leadership expertise in disease management (IVD, POC), portable point of care and wearable physiological monitoring products and technology.

With rising healthcare costs and people living longer in their own homes, the opportunities in digital health must be considered across the entire healthcare system to reduce costs while enhancing the delivery of services. Home-use devices, wearables, mobile applications, networked technologies, cloud computing and artificial intelligence are creating opportunities for direct-to-consumer medical technologies to move the provision of care away from hospitals and clinics. This shift means that healthcare innovators need to evolve from a device-centric focus to a service-based offering, focusing on the broader ecosystem rather than the device in isolation.

Working together, PDD and Tri-Star Design offer healthcare clients an opportunity to get ahead, with products and services that work for people, make the most of emerging digital technologies, and address complex challenges in the highly regulated medical industry.

We look forward to meeting up with and demonstrating to our current and prospective clients the full set of capabilities and our flexible project support options that range from filling particular product requirements to turnkey development, engineering prototypes, compliance and environmental testing and ramp-up programmes to full production.

For more information you can contact:

Vassilios Kannelopoulos 
+41 79 610 7403

Paul Errico
+1 508 932 0483

We are very proud to share that the TrickleStar Advanced Keyboard designed in collaboration with PDD, has won the prestigious Red Dot award 2022 in the category of Product Design.

A milestone on energy savings and security

With a reputation for smart and innovative power management systems, TrickleStar approached PDD as they were entering the highly competitive field of computer accessories. The Advanced Keyboard is a milestone product that dramatically improves the security aspects and limits power consumption in offices and workplaces.

Idle workstations represent both a security risk and an unnecessary waste of energy. TrickleStar’s innovative sensor technology reliably detects whether the person using the computer is there or not, and takes appropriate action.

Working in close collaboration with TrickleStar, the PDD team identified design elements to drive sustainable behaviours.

A clearly visible Sleep button encourages the operator to put the entire system – both computer and screen – to sleep.
Positioned at the back and to the side of the keyboard, the button is intuitive to use and self-explanatory. Even if the Sleep function is not activated, the keyboard automatically puts the system to sleep according to the time of absence selected.

The keyboard increases security, preventing sensitive data from being left on display on people’s screens. Extensive tests also show impressive energy savings, meeting the needs of energy-conscious enterprises around the world.

Since you are here, you can also take a look at some of the other award-winning projects we have worked on in the Consumer sector.

We are proud to be featured in New Design Magazine Yearbook 2022.
Karsten Fischer, CEO at PDD, reflects on the last 2 years and shares lessons our industry can take into 2022 and beyond. From flexible working practices to the importance of Sustainability, this article dives into how we can better respond to the demands of this new society we’re living in, as we continue to deliver meaningful innovation in a post-pandemic world.

You can read the full article here.

We are delighted to be featured in Medical + Healthcare Innovation, a special edition by New Design and Engineering magazines, supported by the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI).

In this article, Chris Vincent, Sector Lead – Healthcare; Jamie Buckley, Creative Director and Vassilios Kanellopoulos, Global Business Development Director at PDD, talk about our ground-breaking collaborations with hospitals, the importance of observational research and why, now more than ever, we must put medics at the heart of innovation. They also address key questions around digital health in the context of today’s connected society.

You can read the full article here.

PDD partners with The Youth Group to provide mentoring to young people.

We are delighted to announce our partnership with The Youth Group to mentor young people within their 1.7 million-strong community, helping them to build confidence and thrive in today’s world.

The Youth Group is the largest community of young people in the UK, and our experienced, multidisciplinary team of designers, researchers and engineers have pledge to join The Youth Group’s 12,500+ mentors to motivate and inspire young people in the opportunities around design and innovation.

Mentor Me is a product developed for young people to give them hope, skill and opportunity by being mentored by employees from impressive companies and organisations. Some of The Youth Group’s Mentor Me partners include: Lionsgate, Facebook, Huffington Post, Instagram, PwC, Bumble, LADbible Group, Xero, Sky News, and more.

Karsten Fischer, CEO of PDD says

“At PDD, people are at the centre of our work. From the users we design for to the teams that make up our studios, we thrive on finding solutions that improve people’s lives and make good business sense. Now more than ever, we are also looking to give back, and inspire those at the start of their careers to make the most of the opportunities ahead. We are delighted to partner with The Youth Group and look forward to mentoring and supporting their talented young community as they take on the world.”

Leon Marseglia, Group Director at The Youth Group added:

“I am very excited to be able to work more closely with Karsten, Hollie and the rest of the amazing PDD team. It is very evident to me they are passionate about inspiring and supporting young people to thrive in today’s world through mentoring. PDD’s rigorous and insightful approach to innovation and their commitment to sustainability shone through in my conversations with Karsten. I am really excited and looking forward to having the talented superstar PDD team mentoring our community of young people.”

PDD and The Youth Group are seeking to build a meaningful partnership for the long term. We will keep you posted on exciting, future initiatives as they develop!

We are delighted to announce that Quantex, the innovative pump technology company that started up at PDD, has been acquired by global pump solution expert, PSG, part of Dover Corporation.

It is now over a decade ago that Dr Paul Pankhurst, inventor of Quantex and founder of PDD identified the need for better, more accurate pump solutions. Working closely with the design and engineering teams at PDD, he developed a fundamentally new innovative concept for safe, affordable and recyclable pumps. In 2009, PDD spun off Quantex as an independent company, under Paul’s leadership.

Karsten Fischer, CEO at PDD says,

“Paul founded and developed PDD to become a leading innovation consultancy, but he also embraced the power of new ideas with an incubation platform that would help startups realise their vision and commercialise disruptive technologies. That entrepreneurial spirit continues to inspire us today. We are delighted to have played a part in this journey and wish Dr Pankhurst and his team at Quantex all the success on this next stage of growth”.

PDD launches new initiative to put medics at the heart of innovation

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Jim Roberts, consultant anaesthetist and medical innovator at University College London Hospitals (UCLH), as an independent advisor in healthcare innovation. This initiative seeks to transform how medical technology is developed and used in hospital settings by putting medics at the heart of the process.

Jim leads The Royal National Ear, Nose & Throat Anaesthetics Department at UCLH, one of the world’s leading research hospitals, where he oversees medical innovation programmes and has been directly involved in the creation of new medical devices to improve safety and effectiveness in anaesthetics. One example is the Epidrum, developed in collaboration with Dr Maan Hasan – a device with improved ergonomics to facilitate epidural access. Dr Roberts and Dr Hassan were awarded the Cutlers’ Gold Medal for Innovation from the Royal College of Surgeons for this work in 2007. He is also a member of The Exovent Charity which has developed, in response to the Covid 19 pandemic, a revolutionary, non-invasive Negative Pressure Ventilation System that seeks to provide safe, affordable, reliable and effective treatment for a broad range of acute and chronic respiratory illness around the world.

Jim graduated from St Mary’s Hospital in London in 1993. He spent the next five years working as a junior doctor, building experience across multiple hospital departments, from orthopaedics to infectious diseases via accident and emergency and intensive care. In 1998, he turned his focus to anaesthesia. After completing the seven-year training programme and gaining Fellowship to The Royal College of Anaesthetists, he was appointed to a substantive consultant position at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in 2006.  He has spent the last 15 years delivering specialist ENT and Head and Neck anaesthetic care as well as maintaining a strong interest in training and innovation. In 2017 he was appointed Clinical Lead for Anaesthesia and in the last year has led his team through the Covid pandemic and the transfer of service from The Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital on Gray’s Inn Rd to its new home in The Grafton Way Building at UCLH.

Dr Roberts says,

“As a kid, I was always taking radios to pieces and building bikes, so it is no surprise that when I became an anaesthetist – a career that focuses heavily on the interaction between clinical care and equipment – I instantly began to explore how things could be improved. When you look at how medical technology is designed and how it finds its way into a hospital, you will find a process that is often highly fragmented. It is not uncommon for a new device to be brought in based on its enhanced features and commercial value, only to find some minor and occasionally major flaws when using it in a real-world clinical context. That disconnect between a product’s aspiration and the clinical reality ultimately undermines trust, delaying the adoption of advanced technologies in healthcare and hindering our efforts to provide best care.

When you are an anaesthetist in an operating theatre and you are struggling to secure a patient’s airway, having a touchscreen that does not respond when you are wearing blood-stained gloves can mark the difference between life and death. This is why the needs of both patients and medics have to be truly represented in the design of medical devices. And why healthcare professionals, designers, medical device manufacturers, engineers and hospitals need to work in closer collaboration throughout the entire development process. At PDD, we are piloting new ways to achieve that goal, with an approach that is simple and transparent, and gives medics the tools, capabilities and access they need to put new ideas into practice.”

Chris Vincent, Principal, Sector Lead Healthcare at PDD, explains,

“At PDD, our work in healthcare often sits at the intersection of design and science. With this initiative, we take that idea further to improve how medical devices and products are created, evaluated and adopted in the context of hospital environments.

Medics are often the pioneers of new solutions – they have the knowledge and the ambition to make things better for patients. By putting medics at the heart of innovation and combining the rigour and predictive power of medical and scientific research with the experimental nature of the design process, we have a unique opportunity to accelerate healthcare innovations in meaningful, relevant ways.”

Vassilios Kanellopoulos, Global Business Development Director at PDD, adds,

“We are extremely happy to have this great opportunity to collaborate with Dr Jim Roberts and his valuable network. This initiative will continue to drive our innovative work in healthcare, from concepts to product reality, in the context of an everchanging clinical environment.”

As a designer I have always found the most rewarding products to develop are those that improve the quality of people’s lives: whether it’s medical equipment for new therapies, easier to use pharma devices, protective equipment for industry and defence or safety products for the rugged outdoors. Improving lives for me means delivering better and safer experiences and wellbeing, preferably also in a more efficient or sustainable way. There is a clear value attached to improving the quality of lives of users, so at the same time the endeavour is more likely to be a worthwhile to the producer also. At PDD we call this objective where parties win-win ‘Meaningful Innovation’.