Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2022

Philips Experience Design Team led by Sean Carney

Successful transformation through design – the Philips Experience Design Team led by Sean Carney is Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2022

Lots of companies claim to want to change the world. In most cases, very little happens apart from the lip service paid to the idea of solidarity. But for Philips, empathy and ethics are not just a corporate communications or public relations exercise. Over the past ten years, Philips has transitioned from a mixed industrial group with very different business fields to a leader in health technology. One of the ways this was achieved was by incorporating design and technology into the corporate strategy. Another was the fundamental shift in the understanding of design brought about by the involvement of Sean Carney. The Philips Experience Design Team works under his leadership. The team members are interested in good design and innovative solutions that improve the quality of life, well-being and health of billions of people.

This year’s honorary title “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2022” is being bestowed on the Philips Experience Design Team under the leadership of Sean Carney in recognition of their successful design-led transition.

Sean Carney, Chief Experience Design Officer at Philips

“We are designing with meaning and purpose.”

The Philips Experience Design Team led by Sean Carney

Sean Carney’s design team comprises more than 700 designers around the world. Spread over 13 studios in America, Europe and Asia, different design disciplines coalesce: User Experience Design, Design Strategy & Insights, Product Design, Brand & Communication Design, Design Business Leadership, DesignOps. “Where design used to just be about graphic design, nowadays we distinguish between over 30 different design tasks, like visualising data or analysing trends”. This is how Sean Carney explains the change within the team and the transformation in design in general. To make clear what he and his team are now doing, the design team changed its name to the Philips Experience Design Team two years ago. The focus is no longer on the individual product. Instead, it is on the patient and user experience as well as an integrated solution that also includes the immediate environment and digitally available data in real time.

Combining digital technologies with solution-based approaches

In order to monitor and analyse patients’ symptoms more closely, Philips combines digital technologies with solution-based approaches. Big data and artificial intelligence provide available data in real time precisely where they are needed. In the area of patient monitoring alone, Philips has developed a care system that can monitor around 275 million patients around the clock each year. The system allows an X-ray assistant or cardiologist, for example, to access a range of information in real time that is helpful for further treatment.

Award-winning design quality

The design quality is also reflected in the Red Dot Design Award. Under the leadership of Sean Carney, the Philips Experience Design Team has received the Red Dot: Best of the Best a total of twelve times. What is noteworthy about this result is not only the distinctions in the product categories ‘Healthcare Design’, ‘Personal Care’ and ‘Medical Design’, but also the distinctions that the Philips Experience Design Team has received in the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design and in the Red Dot Award: Design Concept.

Honorary title “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year” for necessary and innovative technologies

Not only is Philips exemplary when it comes to putting into practice its own claim for a multidisciplinary approach to design, it is also one of the few companies worldwide to offer solutions to the pressing issues of the 21st century. Against the backdrop of an ageing population, the increase in chronic illnesses, the threat of pandemics and rising healthcare costs, Philips’ strategic realignment and repositioning as a leading health tech company is also likely to provide impetus to other companies.

The Philips Experience Design Team led by Sean Carney puts these ideals and ideas into practice using innovative technologies. The team always starts from the perspective of the product’s subsequent use in practice. This approach results in devices that are intuitive and simple to use and operate but that are also effective and deliver meaningful outcomes.

For this accomplishment, the design team is receiving the honorary title “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2022”. Sean Carney and his team are worthy successors to last year’s recipient, Studio F. A. Porsche

“Sean Carney and his design team achieve what lots of people dream of but only a few accomplish, which is to design devices – or rather holistic solutions – that require technology and design to work together with the aim of advancing Philips as a company and having a long-lasting positive impact on the transformation of healthcare. The Philips Experience Design Team with its multidisciplinary gearing has been providing proof of its leadership in health tech for many years now. The Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2022 distinction is well-deserved recognition for their work.”

The Hall of Fame of the international design scene

All Red Dot: Design Teams of the Year

The title “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year” was first awarded back in 1988. Traditionally, the honouring takes place during the Red Dot Gala in Essen in front of roughly 1,200 international guests. The winning team from the previous year hands over the Radius trophy, made from pewter and weighing 11 kg, to the new winner. 

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