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On Thursday April 26th, design-people opened the doors to our new facilities at Vesterbro Torv for a two-in-one celebration. The first part of the event was dedicated to the Female Interaction book launch. Klaus Schroeder and Stine Vilhelmsen gave a presentation some of the highlights of the project, which gave rise to questions and praise from the audience.

After the presentation, the office reception was started with champagne and an updated version of Karolines Kogebog classics served by the food specialists from next door private dining studio BETA. The rain was pouring so we didn't get to use the newly completed balconies, but luckily our new office is big enough for everybody.

As part of our Female Interaction research an international survey on women and technology was conducted with more than 650 women from USA, France, Germany, United Kingdom, South Korea and Japan. The data reveal surprising similarities in women’s tech preferences in spite of their vast cultural and social differences.

Not surprisingly price is among the paramount considerations when women all over the world purchase a television set. But what comes next? Features? Or design?
Women all over the world rate “ease of use” over other parameters – e.g. 300% over “aesthetics”, covering traditional product design parameters like material, shape and color. When it comes to PC, laptop and mobile phone, the same general female priorities apply. “Ease of use” is an absolute key performance factor when developing new tech products for women!

Our new address is Vesterbro Torv 1-3, 3rd floor - still in downtown Aarhus. You will encounter an open, light and somewhat industrial environment next time you visit us in our new studio. It hurts a little to move from our charming location in Graven, but it is obvious to everybody that the room is too small for the increasing number of design-people.

We now have space to continue our growth and offer our team and clients far better working and meeting facilities. Furthermore, our parking facilities have improved – please find a guide under Contact. We hope to see you soon.

We did it again - the intense collaboration between designers from design-people and our clients’ development teams has been rewarded. 

Two innovative designs were honored by a panel of critical design expert and received the international iF product design award. The awards will officially be handed over at the iF design awards night on February 10 2012 and will be exhibited at the iF design exhibition in Hannover

The new satellite speaker for Jamo addresses a trend-conscious young and a female target group. The elegant and refined design with the characteristic grill pattern convinced the jury. 

Quite different are design brief and target group for Kamstrups new and ground breaking water meter in which we address the professional plumbers who’s situation of use could hardly be more rugged. A new approach to usability in installation and meter reading along with a characteristic product design and new materials already rock the market - so the design award does not come as a total surprise. 

Congratulations to our clients and thanks for the fruitful collaborations.

Kamstrup is a leading supplier within metering systems for water, electricity and distributed heating. Symbols and icons are used throughout Kamstrup's products, software, documentation and marketing. 

Though until recently there were no corporate guidelines for usability, design and use of Kamstrup's icons. The different departments and project teams each did their best, but the approach resulted in different icons with varying design approach and finish were used for similar functions. This inefficient way of working resulted in random user experience in different Kamstrup products and software systems.

The new Kamstrup icon library changed this situation to the better: each new icon is designed based on a corporate Kamstrup design DNA that frames the overall usability approach and look and feel. The benefits are obvious: the users experience is better due to a consistent naming of functions and icon design. The project teams can easily apply the most used Kamstrup icons from the library. New icons are designed according to the DNA guidelines that make them part of the family and available for other project teams.

Once each month the design-people team eats out in one of the exiting restaurants that flourish in downtown Aarhus. The latest "eat-out" was an encounter with a newer gastronomical trend: raw food. Exquisite "green" ingredience are composed into new tasty dishes - none of them has been heated to above 40 degrees. Even the steak fans discovered new qualities in vegitarian meals.

If you wan't to give it a try yourself, here is a link (in Danish): http://raabar.dk/