BusinessWeek & Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) Honors David Chavez’s Innovative Moveable Braille Timepiece Design

David Chavez’s design has earned high honors for his Moveable Braille Timepiece design in the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition sponsored by BusinessWeek and IDSA. End Quote

David Chavez’s award-winning design is called Haptica, a moveable Braille timepiece for the visually impaired.

Orange County, CA (1888PressRelease) July 21, 2008 - David Chavez’s design has earned high honors in the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition sponsored by BusinessWeek and the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). The IDEA competition is a celebration of the most innovative and exciting product and product concept designs of the year and one of the world’s most prestigious design competitions. Selected from 1,517 entries from around the world, the winners exhibit a focus on sustainability, great attention to detail and many offer surprisingly affordable price points.

A recent Industrial Design graduate who currently resides in Orange County, Calif., Chavez was awarded a Bronze IDEA for his Moveable Braille Timepiece. “Haptica is a moveable Braille timepiece for the visually impaired, which enables the user to get a quick and accurate time reading while maintaining user discretion,” said Chavez.

According to Chavez, current Braille timepieces help users orient the watch hands in relation to the watch face but can lead to an inaccurate time assessment. Digital devices use sound to communicate the time, thus inhibiting the user from checking their watch unnoticed. “Haptica provides the perfect solution by displaying a real-time readout in Braille, which the wearer can scan with their finger to check the time,” Chavez noted.

His inspiration for the design concept initially came from the intriguing Urwerk 103 timepiece. “I was fascinated by the Urwerk 103 timepiece’s peculiar beauty and function,” Chavez said. “After I came up with my initial concept, I researched the current Braille watch market and met with students and faculty at the Braille Institute in Anaheim to better understand the needs and nature of that consumer market.”

Chavez added, “It is a great complement and honor to have my design recognized by the International Design Excellence Award program. I put a lot of time and thought into the research and design of this concept so it is very satisfying to have that recognized and rewarded in a forum that is renowned both in and outside the design community.”

The 2008 IDEA jury, comprised of 20 world-renowned designers and design thinkers, spent weeks previewing entries online and two-and-a-half days of intense, face-to-face evaluation and debate on IDEA. Judging criteria for each entry focused on eight areas of industrial design excellence: design innovation; benefit to the user; benefit to the client/business; benefit to society; ecological responsibility; appropriate aesthetics and appeal; usability testing; rigor and reliability (Design Research category); and internal factors and methods, implementation (Design Strategy category).

The BusinessWeek IDEA report hit the stands July 18 with an in-depth analysis of the winners. IDSA’s quarterly magazine, Innovation, will publish information on the Gold, Bronze and Silver winners as well as the finalists in its Yearbook of Design Excellence this fall.

The winners will be honored in a formal ceremony on Saturday, September 13, 2008, the final day of the anticipated 2008 IDSA National Conference & Education Symposium, followed by a gala celebration at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Ariz. Visit www.idsa.org for more information about the winners.

For more information about David Chavez, visit www.david-chavez.com or contact him at 949.293.7766.

About IDEA, Industrial Designers & IDSA
The IDEA program fosters business and public understanding about the impact of industrial design excellence on the quality of life and the economy. Industrial designers determine the form, use features and interaction qualities of manufactured products, packaging and digital media systems. They study people at work, at home and in motion to create satisfying experiences with products from the kitchen and the office to the hospital and the warehouse, shaping these to fit their customers and to make effective use of industrial processes. In this way, industrial designers have a quiet but profound presence in almost everything people encounter during the day.

IDSA is the voice of industrial design, committed to advancing the profession through education, information, community and advocacy.

IDEA is co-sponsored by BusinessWeek and IDSA.

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