Pilotfish in the media

• Designreport
  Wen Design antreibt: Hansaton und Pilotfish
  
  "Wir versuchen generell, das gesamte Produktspektrum zu verstehen, nicht nur einzelne Produkte, an denen wir gerade arbeiten."
  
  
• T3 magazine
  Harm-Willem Hogenbirk talks tech ...
  
  A graduate of the Gerrit Reitveld Academy of Arts,
  Harm-Willem Hogenbirk was awarded the prize of honour
  in 1994 for his Spinto Wheelchair design. In 2000 he
  co-founded Pilotfish, a design company specialising in consumer electronics...
  
  
• DESIGN
  MARC NAGEL JUDGING AT THE 2008 TAIWAN DESIGN AWARD
  
  
• DESIGN
  HANSATON FREE SOUNDMANAGER FEATURED IN DESIGN MAGAZINE
  "The smallest hearing aid in the world designed by Pilotfish"
  "The aesthetic form of Hansaton was based on ergonomic research for user comfort, and the product comes in a series of bright colors. Hansaton has changed people's impression on hearing aids. The hearing aid device has become a young and fashionable statement."
  
  
• Intelligent Times
  USING DESIGN TO CREATE INFLUENCE
  INTERVIEW WITH HARM HOGENBIRK
  "Design is communication - in value, product, and usage."
  
  
• D.FUN
  INTERVIEW WITH HARM HOGENBIRK
  "The future of industrial design is in line with Branding. Together, we can bring in unique product experience relating to a sound brand experience for a full market success."
  
  
• PC Magazine
  DESIGNING THE FUTURE
  "High-tech gadget designers offer a sneak peak at the world of tomorrow..."
  Read full article
  
  
• Business Week online
  A QUANTUM LEAP FOR CELL PHONES
  "A new no-buttons handset by Pilotfish and Synaptics signals that mobiles as we know them may soon be a thing of the past ..."
  
  Read full article
  
  
• Core 77
  STUDIO BULLITS : 2002
  "Using the latest in cold lighting technology, German design firm Pilotfish has introduced a super-slim form factor lighting for domestic and ambient settings, called the I-Nitz..."
  
  
• TechVantage
  ABOCOM OUTSOURCE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TO PILOTFISH AND WIN MICROSOFT ATTENTION
  AboCom designed the web pad for just USD 500,000, a comparatively small amount for a webpad, but still managed to win some big accounts such as Microsoft. Can Pilotfish ID design bring profit to an OEM like AboCom?
  With a capitalization of just NTD 1.1 billion, AboCom is a small fish achieving big things.
  AboCom is one of only five vendors chosen by Microsoft to work along side the software giant on the MIRA project. AboCom's David Kao comments "The first time a customer looks at a product they see the design, not the specs. The design can represent what is great about a product". The webpad has received a lot of attention from the US, Europe and Japan so far, with orders coming from Europe and Japan.
  David Kao outsourced Pilotfish through a friend and contacted Harm Hogenbirk. Mr Hogenbirk, a cofounder of Pilotfish, comments, "David had the good foresight to see that our design is becoming increasingly accepted by the big producers in Taiwan". Pilotfish is a very dynamic and motivated company; a three-man team took just three months to complete the entire industrial design work for AboCom's webpad. Total design cost for the webpad was USD 50,000 of which Pilotfish services cost only USD 25,000. David Kao comments, "This was a very reasonable price. For us to develop our own Industrial Design team the salary cost alone would be as high as NTD 1 million, take uge time and effort and might still not be as high a quality solution".
  Pilotfish has had a presence in Taiwan for just two years now but in Europe it has already designed for such demanding and high profile brand names such as Ericsson. Their sleek and professional design service has provided AboCom with a more attractive and desirable product in the eyes of its clients.
  Pilotfish is a down to earth German company with sharp and professional design.
  A Pilotfish is the small fish that guides a shark to bigger fish. This idea represents how Pilotfish industrial design and marketing service helps our clients bring a product to market successfully. Pilotfish is headquartered in Munich, Germany and numbers almost 20 people.
  Harm Hogenbirk has been in Taiwan for several years now and heads up the Taiwan office. Previous to Pilotfish, Mr Hogenbirk worked at a well-known European design company but left to set up Pilotfish because he felt the big design houses were not achieving the results they should. For Mr Hogenbirk, good design requires teamwork and quick results. Mr Hogenbirk noticed that producers in Taiwan are very down to earth. They have a lot of time pressure and everything has to be achieved quickly. In this kind of environment, Mr Hogenbirk believes there is a spirit that pushes you to achieve and fulfil your ambitions. In the future Pilotfish wants to go beyond pure Industrial Design and provide a more complete go-to-market solution. Pilotfish wants to connect producers in Taiwan to brands in Europe with market led industrial design. Pilotfish can help producers to find brands and vice versa.
  
  
  
  
• Adformatie
  CLEVER GADGETS ARE THE FACE OF A SERVICE
  It is not easy to make yourself visible when you sell intangible products like telephone minutes, green energy or software. These ''services are made tangible with branded products' according to product designers of Pilotfish
  O2 orders a telephone in a Tele 2 design. Branded in the identity of the virtual operator, Tele 2 mobile phone provider wants to sell more of its minutes/seconds. A cheap Tele 2 mobile phone sold at the local shopping mall would be a big help to do so.
  If you ask Pilotfish's partner Harm Hogenbirk, these services are going to be supported by 'identity products'.
  Pilotfish is an industrial design firm that designs electronic products for Taiwanese vendors. Their core principle is 'eastern technology fused with western design'. (In)directly, they design for companies like HP, Siemens, Philips, etc.
  'Taiwan and China are at the forefront of consumer electronics development', says Hogenbirk. However, they do not have the European sense of marketing, therefore they are not able to effectively market their products in western markets.
  The Pilotfish designers see a growing market for their multinationality. They use their eastern vendor network to develop and sell intelligent products to service providers in Europe.
  Identity carriers
  'A product should carry more than a name and/or logo', says marketing director Gijs Zijlstra. 'The product can be customised in all colours, forms and features to convey the company's identity, ideals and goals'.
  'We talk to the marketing department, not the buyers department. We talk firstly about what the product must express to the end customer, then we talk abut cost. Our mission is to brand services. We think we are the first ones in the world that can offer this'.
  The simple idea is that the service provider can achieve more name exposure. Products are carriers of identity, and people respond to these identities. Now, service providers can more effectively target certain consumer groups with aesthetically relevant products,
  For example, Hoermann is a large German producer of automatic garage doors. Hoermann was interested in providing distinct branded remote control products to their major clients. MAN trucks are a symbol of strength, security, reliability and economy. Pilotfish translated these ideals into the design of the MAN remote control. For the Mercedes Benz Automotive remote control, Pilotfish fused both sporty and elegant characteristics for a result that was distinctly 'Mercedes'.
  Zijlstra has also been talking to advertising and communications companies. All have expressed interest in the Pilotfish branding initiative, and some are currently devising plans to use this service as a totally new and innovative marketing tool.
  
  
  
• design report
  PRODUKTREALITÄT IM VORAUS
  "'Bei komplexen Produkten, beispielsweise Hörgeräten, macht die [virtuelle Darstellung] durchaus Sinn. Und sie erleichtert es, mit dem Kunden telefonisch über Details zu sprechen', erläutert Marc Nagel von Pilotfish."
  
  
  
• Focus Energy
  SENSO - Mia Seeger Prize 2006 / 3rd Prize
  "'Senso' is a group of interactive devices that convey every kind of visual, acoustic, olfactory and haptic information to dementia patients from their environment to remind them of things they have forgotten..."
  
  
• plugged
  DIE ERINNERUNG ALS LEBENSELIXIER
  Bericht über "Senso", Diplomarbeit von Pelin Celik (FH Coburg) in Zusammenarbeit mit Pilotfish / Report on "Senso", final year project by Pelin Celik (University of Applied Sciences Coburg) in cooperation with Pilotfish
  
  
• Design Interact
  SYNAPTICS' ONYX PHONE
  "'Human culture is all about hand/eye,' says Harm-Willem Hogenbirk, the firm's CEO. 'And Synaptics gives us the possibility to go back to that.'"
  Read full article
  
  
• Monitor
  PILOTFISH @ SYNAPTICS > ONYX
  "'The real meaning of this product is about opening up the channels between hand, eyes, and device and giving people access to actions and information in a way not possible with conventional buttons," says Brian Conner, leader of the design team for Onyx at Pilotfish in Munich."
  
  
• PC Welt
  DESIGNSTUDIE ONYX - EIN HANDY OHNE TASTEN
  "Touchpad-Spezialisten von Synaptics und Industriedesigner von Pilotfish haben ihre Version des Handys der Zukunft vorgestellt..."
  Read full article
  
  
• Mercedes Magazine
  BUTTON-FREE
  "The Onyx cellphone gleams like a polished semi-precious stone, its upper surface covered with a translucent black skin..."
  
  
• PC Magazine
  TOUCHPAD CELLPHONES LET YOUR CHEEK DO THE WALKING
  "On Monday, interface developer Synaptics, together with Pilotfish, an industrial design company, announced a keyless prototype of a mobile phone that is all screen - all touch pad screen, to be exact..."
  Read full article
  
  
• GQ.com
  DESIGNSTUDIE ONYX
  "Der Krieg mit den Knöpfen war gestern: Das Handy der Zukunft reagiert auf Fingerzeig..."
  
  Read full article
  
  
• form
  IN ZUKUNFT KNOPF-LOS / A KEYLESS FUTURE
  "As the number of functions a cellphone performs grows, so does the number of its keys..."
  
  
• plugged
  ONYX - DIE FERNBEDIENUNG FÜRS LEBEN
  "Eigentlich schade, dass es sich bei Onyx nur um eine Studie handelt, denn die intuitive Bedienung und das elegante Outfit wünschen wir uns schon heute."
  
  
  
• Slash Gear
  SYNAPTICS AND PILOTFISH COLLABORATE TO DEVELOP NEXT GENERATION MOBILE PHONE CONCEPT
  "Unlike many concepts, where a sleek, headline grabbing shell either runs standard software or nothing at all, or a new platform runs on bland reference hardware, part of the charm of Onyx comes from the harmony of the software/hardware interface."
  "The joy of Onyx comes from the cutting-edge industrial design and user interface design package provided by Pilotfish."
  Read full article
  
  
• Core 77
  SYNAPTICS AND PILOTFISH -- ONYX PHONE
  "Onyx's unique newness paves the way for the next generation of mobile phone trends, designing for keyless, highly-interactive curved interface surfaces."
  
  Read full article
  
  

Back | Home

You need to upgrade your Flash Player.
This site requires a more recent version of the Flash plugin than you currently have. This plugin is free and can be downloaded here.
Or, if you're absolutely positive you have the most recent plugin, then click here to force the site to load.