How design and tech will change the way we age
Press
In a recent interview with Fortune Magazine, managing partner Richard Whitehall shares some of his career highlights, and uncovers how Smart Design’s work is changing people’s daily lives through technology and personalization.
Whitehall himself is particularly passionate about finding design solutions across health and wellness sectors, as an “impending healthcare crisis” looms with an increasingly aging society. He notes that much of Smart’s work focuses on prevention, including personalized mobile app solutions, to voice and AI powered software. “With everything being digitally connected these days, brands have to constantly update and evolve their products,” he states.
Richard illustrates examples where we are creating impact, from the Gatorade Gx personalized hydration platform that is helping elite athletes perform better around the world, to work with pharmaceutical giants like Sanofi, designing treatments and health services that empower patients.
Whitehall also shares more on the breadth of work we are continuing to do in helping to build in-house design capability within brands and organizations such as BBVA, from “defining the right project briefs”, to “how to create an environment where designers can flourish within companies.”
Throughout his 15-year career at Smart, Richard has often seen national or global implications to the projects he’s worked on. Yet what keeps him personally motivated, is seeing how Smart Design’s work can change the daily life of an individual. He recalls a project in which they had to design a self-injecting drug for patients with rheumatoid arthritis: “We interviewed a personal trainer who was coming to terms with arthritis, and he shared a poem about his experience that really moved us,” he says. “Little moments like this remind us that we are a human-centered design company.”
To read the full article, visit Fortune Magazine.