Power of Design – Awarded a Prize for Collaborative Project
The Shimadzu Brand Experience exhibit was selected for the iF Design Award 2022, a German design prize! The exhibit was created by Shimadzu (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter SSL), one of the Shimadzu Group companies in China. This is the first time that an exhibition by the Shimadzu Group has received an award.
The concept presented in this exhibition is the fusion of medical and analytical technologies. It incorporates elements of interactive art, with the movements of the participants displayed on large monitors. (Note: The information shown is merely an artistic rendering. It is not actually measured data.)
We will now hear from Jun Kawai of the SSL Design Office, who took the lead in promoting this project.
Comments on Receiving the iF Design Award 2022
I am very pleased that we were able to create new content through collaboration between Japan and China and convey to customers Shimadzu’s social contributions.
In receiving the iF Design Award, I am grateful for the tireless efforts of everyone involved, including the Corporate Product Design Center at the Head Office in Japan and the Design Office at SSL.
Promoting the Project through a Global Team
The goal of the design was to convey as clearly as possible the social contributions made by Shimadzu through science and technology, particularly our initiatives to support human health.
Many people from the general public and from different industries came to the exhibition so I felt it was necessary to communicate in a way that even people who don’t use our products could understand the company. Accordingly, we incorporated interactive art, which is currently in fashion locally, into the presentation.
This was the first time that the Shimadzu Group created an interactive exhibit, and the project was undertaken by a global team. As a design director, I worked hard to utilize the expertise of the staff. As a result, I think that the content we created, which is unique to Shimadzu, demonstrates the team’s respective strengths.
Applying Communication Trends to the Design
Taking advantage of communication trends in China was one of the factors that helped to make such an impact.
At this time in China, videos playing on large monitors are often used to promote companies. We tried to make a difference by incorporating a new exhibition method not used by other companies.
In addition, the use of smartphone applications has grown tremendously, so we created a system that linked directly to an application on the visitor’s phone during the experience. I believe that many people participated as a result.
Through this experience, we had a good opportunity to tune into the local lifestyle, and to understand the importance of incorporating it into an optimal presentation.
Possibilities of Communicative Design
Jun Kawai further emphasizes the utilization of communicative design that incorporates the perspectives of our customers.
I think that brand image differentiation is important. I feel that the challenge is how to create customer-facing content that skillfully incorporates the latest communication design.
To realize this communicative design, the role of design direction is important, and each process from planning to execution needs to be managed from a design perspective. The design perspective could equally be described as the customer’s perspective.
Through these activities at SSL, I learned that by integrating elements of science, art and design (customer perspective), we could present complex events in easy-to-understand formats and communicate the charms of science and technology.
It is my belief that there are more opportunities for the Shimadzu Group to make use of this sort of communicative design. The goal should be to explore these areas and communicate our group’s contribution to society to as many people as possible, thereby increasing our brand values.
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