Design Matters

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum has created an interesting twist on their National Design Awards. They now also feature a People’s Design Award, first introduced in 2006. It lets anyone nominate and vote on a design they like. Last year the winner was the Katrina Cottage designed by Marianne Cusato for FEMA temporary disaster housing.It certainly looks more interesting than a generic mobile home.

All you have to do is register and go through a rather simple nomination process. Basically give the title of the nomination, why it is important, who designed it, and download a few photographs. So far there are over 140 nominations. You can nominate as many designs as you like, but you can only vote once. Everything from the adhesive bandage to the Seagram Building in New York City designed by Mies van der Rohe is the running. I’m proud to say that the ThinkPad has also been nominated based on it’s quality and staying power. If you want to see ThinkPad, or for that matter one of your other favorites win make certain you check it out. You must vote by 6:00PM EST October 16.

Here is the official announcement:

The People’s Design Award gives the general public an opportunity to nominate and vote for a design of their choice by logging on to www.cooperhewitt.org. Whether an everyday object, a design classic, or an architectural landmark, voters are invited to express their views on what constitutes good design. Voting begins September 17, 2007, and the winning design will be announced on October 18, 2007, at the National Design Awards gala in New York City.

David Hill

Lenovo has designed and sold numerous monitors, but we just released one that breaks the mold in a few different ways. Our previous ThinkVision monitors have always been well designed with valuable ergonomics and image quality in mind, but our latest offering takes this to a higher level.

Image quality is clearly at the forefront of the L220x’s accolades, including the industry’s first WUXGA (1920×1200) resolution in a 22″ panel. It also includes a four-port powered USB hub, and rotates between landscape and portrait mode. We’ve done the rotate trick before, but never with a monitor so large and with so many possible cables attached. Cables are the enemy of rotating a monitor from landscape to portrait, trust me we’ve wrestled with this one before.

Here we devised a clever rubberized clip that gathers the cables into one assembly and then gently loops them through the base. The loop is critical in making this all work. All the cables then neatly exit the stand through a mouse hole in the snap off rear cover. It’s this type of attention to detail that makes or break the experience.

Hopefully our customers will agree that these new features make for an enhanced view. You can see more photos here.

David Hill

Earlier in the year I blogged about the Yamato design center and showed pictures and a detailed diagram of the facility where the ThinkPad designers work. Now that the construction dust has finally settled and we have moved into our Morrisville design center, I thought I would share similar information about where my other team works. The design center is perched on the 5th floor of building one at our Morrisville headquarters. Our design gallery is directly behind the large Lenovo logo that is suspended from the glass curtain wall. Adjacent to the gallery is a studio space where we all sit, a model shop for constructing quick study models and prototypes, a usability lab for testing hardware and software, and a dramatic design gallery for displaying works in progress.

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This is shot peeking into the design gallery where we keep all the secret stuff I can’t show you. The freestanding monolithic walls provide a sense of mystery and screen the view.

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This is where we often meet to discuss and create new design concepts. If you look closely on the table you can see a glimpse of a glass serving container for the three types of TrackPoint caps. You never know when you might need a new one in the middle of a meeting. The chairs are the Think Chair manufactured by Steelcase.

We often bring customers into the center for guided tours and to get feedback on concepts we are working on. Enjoy.

David Hill