Sequoia-studio founded by Pascal Bardel and Nicolas Melan in 2008, is an innovative design studio with a multicultural team, supporting a wide range of clients globally, with an experience of more than 24 years in China, surmounting the cultural codes of Europe and Asia. They offer necessary expertise in product design also, consulting and design coaching to address various issues related to business development. Globally located with headquarters in Hong Kong and design offices in China and France.
They offer design solutions that provide value, meaning and relevance to the client’s products, keeping in line with the design brief, client’s brand image, the current and future market trends. With a belief in 3 P’s: passion, purpose and professionalism, they undertake rigorous analysis and research to determine numerous factors contributing to building a sustainable business for their clients by providing desirable products, better user experience and customer loyalty.
Here are few innovative product studies to outline the firm’s talent and expertise in the design space.
1. Octave – an external hard drive for LaCie.
This concept illustrates the potential of the brand LaCie and has been awarded the 2018 Design Intelligence Award and ranked in the Top 100 Best Design. The external hard drive is in white lacquered colour, featuring a slip-resistant rubber pad, an integrated LED indicating read or write status, and a front on /off button. Also, it features a 3D printed aluminium plate passively supporting in cooling the device without having fans and a thin black anodised aluminium grid helping in air circulation and dust blocking.
2. Tomorrow’s e-Paper Note for Quo-industry.
e-Paper note is a futuristic, innovative and sustainable proposal for the Japanese SME Quo-industry towards the conventional post-it used these days. E-note comes in a recyclable package, having a stylus, a tactile and flexible electronic paper technology, making it easy, reusable where the paper can be stuck/unstuck, and durable, with special Gecko glue, inspired by nature. It is proposed with a Flexi-colour touch screen to work intuitively using the handwriting recognition interface, and it draws power by the solar captor.
The base helps to recover back to the last settings when there is a power loss or is unused for a longer time. E-note is coming with a visual alarm function, eight possible colours of message display helping for the visually-impaired or colour-blinded people.
3. Cocoon — a baby monitor for Solitech.
The Cocoon for the company Solitech is in design where both parent and the baby unit coherent aesthetically by being well-rounded, soft and enigmatic, comes in a plastic shell body helping in optimizing the production cost. The additional feature in the baby module is a night light to its camera, can clamp on any furniture and the parent module is with a colour LCD screen. It incorporates a high-tech video monitoring and camera, creating a sober ambience personifying being close to the baby universe and letting parents feel close to their little one despite being away. Cocoon design won an M Joy Design award in 2017.
4. Video Door colour IU-P03 for Bticino.
A 7” touch LED screen video door inspired by the high-end electronics universe with a flat-big screen effect, simple architectural minimalistic style for a better user experience. A black glossy front touch screen allows the function buttons to fade away, letting the screen showcase the required discrete graphics maximising the screen. Two horizontal chrome bars at the ends reinforce the premium outlook in the world of high-end products.
5. Extruded IP67 LED Fixture – for AlverLamp.
A sleek extruded IP67 rated LED fixture series is an innovative study undertaken for AlverLamp, a Spanish industrial lighting manufacturer and distributor for both domestic and international markets. Its primary goal is to streamline manufacturing and production costs, facilitate installation with ease and have low labour costs.
The fixture body is an extruded bi-material manufactured in a single mould for three different product sizes. Three initial design concepts being simple, the balance of strictness and softness, with different shapes of the cap and materials to merge or stand out from the ceiling.
6. Portable Radio Mojo and MP3 player Liloo for Quo-industry.
Mojo, a portable radio for the home inspired by old Braun products, looks contemporary with vivid colours and a sombre style, having an LCD, omnidirectional speakers, retractable antenna, AM/FM channels, analog controls. Mojo offers the features that a compact radio should.
Liloo is a built-in flash memory MP3 player designed for the European market. It features an OLED display with a backlight and is with a simple round style inspired by a pendant, which can be slipped into a pocket or worn across the neck or around a belt.
7. K-Line Range for e-health solutions for Kapelse.
In 2013, an innovative concept study for three e-health solutions around the Carte Vitale (a national French e-health card) for the professionals of the medical world. The card is used by doctors, healthcare workers across hospitals, visiting nurses to prescribe medicines, and keep track of patient’s medical records and supply them medicine as per prescriptions. The product concept is around having consistent identity between constraints of different use of being fixed, mobile or shelf solution.
K1 is a card reader that can be placed horizontally or vertically at the counters of pharmacies and doctors’ offices. The users can place their cards in any of the two proposed locations alongside their private insurance cards. This function is not available in France, but the K-Line range is already included in their products.
K2 is a tablet with dual functions by providing information on drugs in pharmacies self-service section and by helping the senior healthcare experience by allowing them to connect with their doctors remotely.
K3 is a portable version to help the visiting nurses save time to determine the different administration patient records.
8. Powerboard range pro series for HPM-Legrand.
The Legrand Group is a multi-brand company that acquires specialized brands developing the best technologies and products for specific uses. HPM is an iconic Australian brand in the electrical industry that denotes quality, reliability, safety and convenience.
The powerboard range is a plastic hood with non-slip surface treatment for easy handling, a black rear body with a yellow front body that reminisces the construction industry machines and the HPM logo visual chart. It draws inspiration from the crane remote control, is durable, practical, solid grips, conspicuous protections and is for heavy-duty uses to power the professional tools on construction sites.
The P01 features a comfortable integrated rubber handle, a plastic part that makes it easy to fix on a support like a wall and easy cable management. P02 is in H-shape that allows easy and fast cable storage. P04 is with maximum common parts that minimise cost on production and with three variations relating to several sockets with built-in LED lighting. P06 is a waterproof extension lead available in different lengths of 10m to 30m, with a profile of the head and circular groove that allow it to connect to an HPM-Legrand waterproof plug.
9. Stark – a business line luggage design for Carlton.
Image Sources: Image 29: Stark-robust travel luggage for professionals_ ©Sequoia-studio
It is a three-size nestable rough and tough, ingeniously designed using polycarbonate and a zip system, impact-resistant travel luggage. It features telescopic tubes as retractable handles, integrated with the corrugated shell, ensuring minimum friction sound on use and offers an almost flat inside to save space storage. Its ergonomic strolley design lets one effortlessly manoeuvre across the bustle. Its design is with the right choice of material sufficing to maintain quality, providing reliability and timeless design, being distinctive where people across will not miss staring.
The structured vertical lines provide rigidity and the hanging points at the angles with aluminium frame can be used to hang small bags. Integrated small storage systems at the back optimize the cabin trunk for storage inside. It comes with sober colours, sophisticated details, premium finish, showcasing the professionalism of the users.
10. Lite Vac Bagless & wireless vacuum cleaner for Bissell
Bissell is a company that deals in floor care products. The goal was to help the company with attractive ways of presenting its wireless technology to its customers. The design is slender, minimalistic, a fluid body having a handle profile taken from the existing products of the company, however, integrating it with a refreshing look with continuity of elegant shape. It is restricted to white colours keeping it simple, denoting a notion of purity. It can be wireless or even plugged in.
Product controls are at the back – suction brush, on/off, battery recharging mode indicator highlighted for visibility and is with cyclonic bagless suction unit showcasing the relatively simple technical detail.
Sequoia-studio shares this vision that will work well together and overcome the multiple challenges of today’s marketplace. Do visit the company website to know and discover more about their products.
All photo credits and copyright with Sequoia-studio.
References
- Sequoia. (n.d.). Innovation & industrial design: Sequoia-studio. [online] Available at: http://sequoia-studio.com/ [Accessed 10 Sep. 2021].
