MILAN FURNITURE FAIR 2007

Lunar's Becky Brown and John Edson provide a perspective on their recent visit to the Salone Internazionale del Mobile (Milan Furniture Fair).
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LUNAR MAKES AN
IMPACT AT THE COOL PRODUCTS EXPO

Lunar Design previewed their cool products for 2006/2007: Sandisk Cruzer Contour, Sandisk C200, Belkin Domus, HP Media Smart Server, Accuray Fixed Collimator Changer, Novint Needle Simulator.

SanDisk Cruzer Contour: This personal luxury accessory has a smooth black, glossy ceramic design and innovative sliding USB connector that retracts into the body. The revolutionary push-pull action eliminates the need for caps and protects the connector.

SanDisk Sansa c200: A recent edition to the SanDisk mp3 player family, the Sansa c200 extends the original e200 design language into a lower capacity and lower cost player while still retaining a sense of elegance and simplicity.

Belkin Notebook Expansion Dock: The Notebook Expansion Dock is a universal expansion dock with video capabilities, allowing you to access all of your multimedia devices with one easy connection through your notebook’s ExpressCard slot. The dock’s unique vertical design minimizes the amount of space taken up on the user’s desk, thus providing a more usable and efficient work space.

HP MediaSmart Server: Most households now have at least one PC, and many have more. With the MediaSmart Server, all computers in the home can be hooked up to this single server. The design of this product needed to be different and distinct from the design of PC's to emphasize its different purpose. The glossy black surfaces and unique form make the MediaSmart server at home in either the den, home office or home theatre.

Accuray Fixed Collimator Changer: Part of the Accuray Cyberknife Robotic Radiosurgery System suite, the Fixed Collimator Changer is a storage station that contributes to the ease of use for the systems’ technicians. Because treatments vary from patient to patient, the suite needed to provide easy access to collimators, used to concentrate the radiation, with a range of diameters. The pedestal also allows the robotic arm of the Cyberknife to change out the needed collimator, rather than requiring the technician to do so

Novint Needle Simulator: Using technology already integrated into the Novint Falcon, an interactive 3D touch controller developed for playing touch enabled PC games, Lunar designed a solution for adapting the interchangeable grip interface for medical procedure training. The Needle Simulator allows for a virtual demonstration of a specialized injection procedure into the synovial space of shoulder and knee joints. Lunar’s task was to create a custom grip which would provide key additional feedback aspects of the procedure: the look, feel and action of an actual syringe; syringe orientation (tilt angle); and plunger resistance (hydraulic).

FRIEND2FRIEND

Lunar Designer Junggi Sung’s Friend2Friend Project
Named a Top Nominee for the Index: Award

Lunar Designer Junggi Sung’s Friend2Friend project is an idea sparked to assuage the need for school supplies in developing countries. It has been named a top nominee for the Index: Award, the largest international design award in the world. The postcard concept was created with the intent of becoming a pen pal campaign distributed by a world humanitarian organization much like UNICEF. Index: Award covers seven continents and is global in scope. A total of 340 designs from all over the world were originally nominated for the award, and the international jury short listed 112 top nominees. Friend2Friend was nominated in the category of “community.”
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SFO DESIGN EXHIBIT

Lunar’s co-founder and COO, Gerard Fubershaw, initiated the San Francisco Airport Museum’s Industrial Design Exhibition when, as chair of IDSA-SF, he was interested in garnering exposure for the profession of industrial design. The Museum in turn was interested in exposing the public to industrial design and the industrial design process.

A panel at the museum screened submissions from Bay Area design firms and corporate design groups, entitled to submit up to six projects. Since the Museum displays exhibition objects in acrylic cases, SFO was interested in 3-D work, particularly those projects that clearly illustrated the design process.

Out of Lunar's six submissions, the Cross-Action Toothbrush and the Philips Velo were chosen.

LIGHTING THE PATH:
BRIGHTWALK

Sport enthusiasts running in the dark of night inspired Lunar designer Alberto Villarreal to develop BrightWalk, a lifestyle shoe that illuminates runners and walkers setting out to stride into the night. The shoe is powered by each stride, with the energy produced from the impact of each step. Piezo-electric transducers and electroluminescent polymers generate the light. The internal conductors embedded in the sole transmit the electric power from the piezo-electric transducers to the electroluminescent polymers located in the front and rear of the shoe which produce light when stimulated electrically.

Innovation meets aesthetics: The shoe is light, made of stretch cloth with the lights both in the front and back of the shoe illuminating the path for the athlete, and alerting cars. Alberto’s design allows the look of a lifestyle shoe, more so than a running shoe with the option of customized graphics on shoe’s uppers.

BrightWalk was chosen as a runner-up in Metropolis’s Annual Design Competition, Next Generation 2007, with a theme this year focused on energy in design.