innovate 6 - Helen Hamlyn Centre - Royal College of Art

JudgesLynda Relph-Knight, Editor,Design WeekDavid Yelding, Director,RicabilityRama Gheerawo,Research Fellow, HelenHamlyn Research Centrefound it wonderfully refreshing, to hear thepowerful message of ‘less is more’ in regardto mobile phone technology from two youngdesigners.They were impressed by the designers’willingness to strip the mobile phone downto its essentials, eliminate those elementsthat wouldn’t fit, and craft a beautiful,sensual object that worked at the aestheticand functional levels. The judges liked thephone’s tactile buttons, its intuitive featuresand felt it could have as much impact on themarketplace as BT’s Big Button telephone.Lewis Moberly, an independent brandidentity consultancy with offices in London,Paris and Geneva, developed Eye Speak –a communication device to transmit a visuallanguage. Its aim is to facilitate non-verbalcommunication in noisy environments whereconventional means are ineffective or wherehearing impairments can lead to socialexclusion.The judges felt that the design teamhad identified a neglected area that disableseveryone, not just the hard of hearing. Theywere impressed by their willingness to goback to first principles, look at non-verbalsigning systems and extract those elementsthat were crucial to the aspirational and7