WINNER
Colourwall
by Megaverse with Artfelt, for Sheffield Children's Hospital
Artfelt, The Childrenʼs Hospital Charity arts programme, oversaw the design of Sheffield Childrenʼs Hospital's new Safeguarding Support Unit – a specialist facility to support children and young people where there have been safeguarding concerns such as potential neglect or physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Artfelt worked with unit staff and psychologists to create a “welcoming, neutral and safe” space with a Colourwall at its centre. This large interactive light wall in the unitʼs main waiting room, designed by digital arts studio Megaverse, uses depth sensors and Phillip Hue smart lights in a lightbox covered in a single sheet of acrylic for easy cleaning and durability. It aims to provide a “creative distraction” for those waiting, who are often highly anxious. When the first shape is touched it fills with colour, from which the user selects their favourite shade of the spectrum by holding their hand in place, before moving onto the next space. “The Colourwall is designed to give a child the sense of control and achievement they might be lacking elsewhere in their lives,” say Artfelt. The wallʼs tessellating pattern is simple enough for younger users while allowing for more complex artworks to be created by older children and teenagers. The multi-touch input means young people, parents and staff can use the wall together to help foster trusting relationships.
The judges said: “Clear presentation with inspiring objectives, which gives a lovely, simplistic approach to the project that really fits into the space it occupies. It’s visually engaging, useful and ambitious with room to progress even further.”
Vashi Website Design System
by Manifesto Studios, for Vashi
Vashi is a “challenger fine jewellery brand” according to its site designers Manifesto Studios. Aimed at millennials, it allows customers to design and make jewellery onsite and online.
The new design looks to correctly position Vashi as a fine jewellery brand, using a “customer- centered”, fresh and approachable feel to increase product desirability. The new site uses integrated brand storytelling and messaging to account for multiple entry points from Google searches and was designed to be easily updated as the business rapidly expands. Collaborating with Baker & Evans, the team behind Apple Watches’ art direction, as well as Vashiʼs in-house developer team, Manifesto says its approach was to create a “bespoke component based design system, from the ground up”.
The designs are based on component modules to enable flexibility rather than the usual page templates; and features include photographs of real customers “to authentically show approachability”; film vignettes showcasing the craft and “joy” in making your own jewellery and messaging modules were designed to hold different key messages based on the customer’s individual user journey.
INTERACTION DESIGN
A digital experience to ‘break the rules’
by MERó, for Beauty Bay
MERó was briefed to create a digital experience to “break the rules” for Europeʼs largest independent online beauty destination, UK-based Beauty Bay. The designs had to engage its core customer base of “digitally empowered Gen Z and Millennials”, says MERó. The main goal was to make Beauty Bay a platform users would want to return to, so the design separates commerce and content – or ‘Shop’ and ‘Discover’ – by incorporating long-form content into the shopping experience and removing overt sales pressure while seamlessly linking the two distinct sections. Content from beauty influencers the site had previously partnered with is integrated into the site alongside the platform’s own social media content and other user-generated posts. “By placing these images next to product images, customers can easily recreate the look and feel part of the Beauty Bay community,” says MERó. The new site is entirely mobile optimised, with the vertically split homepage design consistent across all platforms. The redesign resulted in more than 700,000 new Instagram followers.
