Adobe Fill & Sign

Precious Plastic is a combination of people, machines, platforms, and knowledge to create an alternative global recycling system. In selecting this year’s Future Voice Award, I found myself looking at designers who are looking around at how do human beings interact with the planet … In brief, Precious Plastics is trying to solve the horrific environmental crisis of the waste of ocean plastics … what I’m recognizing is tens of thousands of individuals around the world who are bringing out their own Interaction Designer … addressing some of the most problematic carnages that come from how we live on this world. – Dan Makoski, Interaction Awards Jury Chair

A picture is worth 1000 words. Great visuals can enhance, dramatize and even bend the narrative. From historical photos to modern-day digital images made of millions of pixels, images have always been instrumental in shaping our visual understanding of the world around us. As much as they have been instrumental in shaping reality, easy access to image manipulation has also resulted in widespread misinformation. When we can fake anything, honest representation of reality in images has become a complex problem to crack.

Typical physical-digital and electronics prototyping require a fairly steep learning curve, meaning that hours are spent dealing with syntax. Many platforms rely on wiring and physical connections that can be fiddly and cause extra failing points within the design. SAM is designed to empower students, designers, and creatives of all ages and skills to make prototypes, connected products, and services, with zero code.

When Nike Basketball came to us to help them deliver on their mission to help young athletes elevate their performance, our first step was to understand how kids try to improve their game. Our ethnographic research revealed a key insight: fledgling players hone their skills by watching their basketball idols, and mimic their signature moves in order to appropriate pros’ moves and personalize them to suit their own unique style. At the inaugural World Basketball Festival at the legendary Rucker Park in Harlem, we created The Film Room, a live event where aspiring players not only learn from the very best, they make the moves on their own, and learn about their performance. The Film Room is part green screen, part half court, 100% education. Kids watch a pro performing a signature move, and with the help of Nike coaches, analyze each step. Next, they try to perform the move themselves on the half-court. As they perform the move, HD cameras capture their movements and a custom-built algorithm breaks down each frame. Within minutes, participants receive a personalized 18 x 24” Nike Basketball poster, starring themselves.

Human trafficking affects 20-30 million victims worldwide. Over 70% of these are women who are forced to work in factories, farms, homes, and brothels around the world. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of minors are considered to be at-risk for commercial sexual exploitation. Victims are rarely “rescued” from trafficking. Most survivors extricate themselves, and are immediately dependent on a variety of support services for housing, medical attention, and emotional care.

Color Tone is a set of tools, for people who are deaf or hard of hearing in Costa Rica, to experience the physicality of sound. It allows them to access sound and the information it contains by experiencing it through sight and touch. They can also use it with hearing people and share their experiences and feelings.

In 2013 I attended a concert where I lost some of my high-frequency hearing and gained tinnitus due to an acoustic trauma. It completely changed the way I experienced the world and sound; as a former classical singer, that was a big shift. But as I adapted to my new sensory perception, I came to know music’s power anew, wonder how others experienced sound differently than I, and how this force could be used for healing. This curiosity eventually lead me to the music therapists and deaf and hearing-impaired patients of Elizabeth Seton Children’s.

Simple is an app that helps busy clinicians to manage hypertensive patients by tracking their blood pressure and medications and ensuring, through regular check-ups, that patients stay on treatment. The India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI), aims to improve hypertension control by 25% by the year 2025, in order to drastically reduce heart attacks and strokes, which kill millions of Indians. Simple is a key component in that effort.

There are currently over 65 million people displaced worldwide, the highest number since World War II. Last year the UN’s migration body, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) attended to the welfare of over 5.2 million people. Although access to healthcare is a basic human right, the growing number of refugees and migrants is making it increasingly difficult to provide support on the ground. Inspired by the on-going European refugee crisis, Frontend volunteered to work with IOM to review their service provisioning and design a “Future Vision for Migrant Healthcare”. Reimaging medication labelling is a central part of this project.

“Who, Like Me, Is Threatened?” is a unique interactive mirror experience that serves as an introduction to Spark of Conviction: The Global Human Rights Movement at Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights (CCHR). The gateway into the gallery both literally and figuratively, it helps visitors forge an emotional connection to difficult content, leaving an impression that stays with them long after they’ve departed the museum.