TOP INNOVATION  

”Longevity is a very impor­tant aspect“

Inter­view with Thomas Star­czewski, Product Designer and Man­aging Director of the agency design­ship in Ulm about the new design of PMK and MKC.

With your char­ac­ter­istic machine design, Harro Höfliger breaks new ground.

Thomas Star­czewski, Product Designer and Man­aging Director of the agency design­ship in Ulm

The design was devel­oped in a team and reflects my 25 years of machine design expe­ri­ence and the cre­ative, knowl­edge­able input of my staff mem­bers. The faceted and clear geo­metric shape results from the real­iza­tion that design ele­ments from this canon of forms will not become opti­cally boring in a short period of time. Longevity is a very impor­tant aspect in the design of machines. More­over, such a design can also be imple­mented economically.

What inspired this machine shape?

The design con­cept of the PMK and MKC is based on the idea to offer the viewer a clear, dis­tinc­tive and well-arranged overall appear­ance. This cre­ates trust and visu­al­izes innovation.

First and fore­most, one expects that pro­duc­tion machines func­tion reli­ably and are easy to operate.

Why shouldn’t pro­duc­tion machines also look good? One does not exclude the other. Good design is always the sum of a mul­ti­tude of opti­miza­tions. A good-looking machine also scores points on an emo­tional level: Modern, clear machine design com­mu­ni­cates quality and value, and also the exper­tise of the company.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from design­ship and Harro Höfliger receive the IF Gold Award.

How can the new design con­tribute to functionality?

In order to create a good, func­tional design, existing ways of thinking must be ques­tioned and, if nec­es­sary, changed with a view to product opti­miza­tion. A holistic design devel­op­ment process involves people, han­dling, ergonomics, pro­duc­tion methods and processes, and many other aspects. Design that rec­on­ciles emo­tion and prag­ma­tism con­tributes directly to product optimization.

It all started with a com­bi­na­tion of PMK and MKC. Can the new design lan­guage be trans­ferred to all Harro Höfliger machines?

Already during the devel­op­ment of the new design, we exam­ined the pos­si­bil­i­ties of trans­fer­ring the new style ele­ments, the Visual Keys. I can assure you, it works.

Your machine design was recently awarded the cov­eted IF Gold Award and the Red Dot Award.

We are very pleased to have received this awards. It con­firms the trust that Harro Höfliger has placed in design­ship. It moti­vates us and shows that we have taken the right path with our design phi­los­ophy, the design­ship method.

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Photos: design­ship, Helmar Lünig