Bittersweet end to the week!

This week at the Lab has been full on and extremely busy for everyone, there has been so much happening! 

On Monday our postgraduate students did a 3 minute presentation on the projects they are working on and the progress so far. The attendees to the event included a mix of AUT and ADHB staff. There was fantastic feedback from the groups that attended and was great to see all the projects together. 

It has been a bittersweet end of the week for us at the Lab. Today we say goodbye to Emme Jacob our amazing Graphic Designer!

Emme joined last year and has been a really valuable part of the team, contributing to a lot of great changes in the Lab.  While there have been many highlights some stand outs include Auckland DHB Values branding and retail pharmacy work done with Josh.  

Emme has tackled everything with real energy and enthusiasm. The Lab would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication.  Your energy and love for what you do will be missed by the team! 

We wish you all the very best in the UK and good luck completing your masters! As much as we will miss you here at the Lab, we know this is a great opportunity and we can't wait to hear about it! We are super excited for you and your new adventure! 

We are hiring: Graphic Designer

We are currently looking for a new Graphic/Communication Designer to join our team, this role is a one year fixed term.  We need someone that is excited about contributing to a collaborative and mixed disciplined team. The role requires compassion, empathy and strong relationship building skills as you will be interacting with hospital staff, patients and families.

Down to the nitty gritty of the role!

Must haves include:

• Photoshop
• Illustrator
• InDesign

Ideals for the role:

• After effects
• Web/coding
• Film/photography

If interested in social design and want role that helps benefit the community, while having the opportunity to work on various projects which include:

• Wayfinding
• Branding
• Information design
• Typography/Iconography
• Public design
• UX/UI Design
• Print design
• Film

If you have a couple years of Graphics/Communication design experience, have a sharp eye for detail and want a role that has the feel good factor this is for you!

Please visit the AUT careers site today! 

Applications close on Friday 29th April 2016, 5.00pm.

Researcher Profile: Jaye Buchbinder

Our newest member of the lab is Jaye Buchbinder, coming from California to work on research towards the opportunities and stakeholder understanding of the DHW lab. She’s currently a Master's student at Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering, looking at the intersection between management effectiveness and efficiency as well as entrepreneurship and scaling innovation. During her undergrad (also at Stanford), Jaye studied Sustainable Design and Engineering, where she spent a lot of time in the engineering department and design school studying sustainability not only in the environmental sense but also in longevity of design and impact on people.

Her experience with design is a wide range between sustainable engineering at Emeco, an American furniture manufacturer, to materials engineering at BMW, product launch design at Victoria’s Secret, teaching design thinking across Asia, and innovation scaling at the Stanford Hospital for her most recent research project.

She is incredibly excited to be in the land of the Kiwi’s, already addicted to the coffee here, absolutely loves picking up new slang, and always looking to make her trip chockablock of adventures!

Governor General Visits the Lab

Last week AUT was fortunate to have the Governor General, Jerry Mateparae visit the university for the first time.  As part of his visit the Sir Mateparae came to the DHW Lab to find out a bit more about the lab and what we've been doing!

The Governor General had the opportunity to hear from our students,  our team at the lab and also the Co-Directors.

Antonio Wan, presented his redesigned neonatal baby bath and Charlotte Dickson went through her interactive picture books for starship outpatient clinics. Both Antonio and Charlotte successfully completed their Bachelor of Design (honours) qualifications in 2015.

Reid Douglas and Byron Thornhill presented on projects that the DHW Lab has worked recently, including the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) relapse guide and the level 8 overbridge concept design at Auckland City Hospital.

Both Co-Directors, Stephen Reay and Justin Kennedy-good focussed on the vision and purpose of the collaboration between the AUT and Auckland District Health Board and their vision for the future of this initiative.

Leona Wang - Fashion Design Student

Yuxi (Leona) Wang recently completed her Bachelor of Art and Design (honours) and decided to carry on to complete her Master of Art and Design specialising in Fashion Design. 

Leona 's Masters project is to design the next generation volunteers uniform at Auckland City Hospital, collectively known as Blue Coats, while being in line with the proposed interior changes for hospital.

The aim for this project is to create an identifiable and welcoming identity for Blue Coat volunteers that are working in the hospitals community.

Here is a quick snapshot of Leona’s progress so far. 

Summer Interns reflection: Olivia and Taewoo

Olivia Labb and Taewoo Wang are recent graduates from Spatial Design at AUT. They were given a brief over summer of improving the Welcome Spaces and experience of the primary entrances of the hospital.

They developed a prototype for a more welcoming and engaging help station for the blue coat volunteers. They took the values work developed by one of the lab’s graphic designer, combined with some advice from the product designers and mixed with a little spatial thinking. Their prototype was successfully tested and received positive feedback for being more approachable to the public.

“The Lab was welcoming and everyone encouraged fresh and different ideas and approaches. The opportunity to develop projects with people of different design backgrounds and ways of thinking was really brilliant. I saw how an idea could go from okay to excellent when graphic, product and spatial designers all work together. For the first time we were challenged to think really pragmatically and I enjoyed this challenge” Olivia.

“The DHW Lab is a great learning space. The discussions I had with designers from varying backgrounds challenged my way of thinking and thus inspired me to constantly develop new ideas. Personally it was a great privilege to train myself to stay humble  when interacting with with co-workers and clients too” Taewoo.

We asked Olivia and Taewoo what advice they would give future students who are wanting to do a summer internship with us!

 “Come to the lab, ask questions, look through all the past work and see where there are threads you could pick up and weave into new projects. Connect with the other designers and work hard. There are exciting opportunities everywhere”  Olivia.

“Don't be too worried about the success of certain ideas or design appoaches. None of these concerns are real until you actually produce and find results. Whether they work or not, these steps all contribute in developing amazing ideas and eventually finding great solutions. Enjoy and have fun” Taewoo.

One of the key highlights of their experience at the lab was getting their desk out on level five entrance and seeing it in action. Olivia described this as a “magical moments when visitors would walk towards the directory, stare at it for a moment, make no sense of where and how they were going to get where they needed to go, and then as they began to walk away confused and unsure they would see the new help station right next to them in its new form and location. They all smiled in relief, asked for directions and then marched off greatly reassured. This making it one of the most satisfying and rewarding moments of Olivia and Taewoo’s time at the lab.