Design Sojourn

My design team and I recently bagged 2 “Innovations 2007 Design and Engineering Awards Honorees” at the world’s biggest consumer electronics show the CES in Viva Las Vegas in January 2007. Sorry it’s a little late…

But I needed to be sure that the press release was cleared. The first award was for our High Definition Kimono LCDTV launched with a lot of criticism at last year’s IFA Berlin 2006 show, and the second award was for our “ultra-stealth” audiophile speaker project codename “Phoenix”.

Called the HD-A (High Definition Audio) Electrostatic Speaker, this speaker is a perfect fusion between engineering and aesthetics. HD-A, a proprietary technology, is the audio equivalent of HD-TV and its related marques.

Overall it was a tough project with many design and management constraints that needed to be overcome, but I think we managed to work it a design solution that did not sacrificed a lot of our design intent. The important thing as well is this speaker design (not the TV) represents, in its entirety the new Nakamichi design language that I had developed since I joined the company more than 4 years ago. This design language development process was in itself was a whole different battle to the product’s management, as acceptance was really the main criteria. I had to be tactful so as to allow the “new look” to be slowly absorbed and accepted by the brand, the organization and its culture, and most importantly by our customers.

This image was a representation of the product for selection for the Innovation Award, it is, however, a rendering of an early Industrial Design prototype as we had to submit the graphics early for consideration.

Meanwhile let me leave you with a slightly fuzzy shot taken by Ubergizmo, interestingly the only one that I have found on the internet. As its still in a prototype mode, so do stay tuned for an image of the actual product once we get the final R&D and marketing clearance.

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