October 2008
The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum presented its third People's Design Award to the Zon hearing aid at its ninth annual National Design Awards gala in New York.
Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” announced the winning design and presented the award to Zon’s designer Stuart Karten.
After thousands of votes were cast during the course of one month on Cooper-Hewitt’s website, Zon, a hearing aid developed by the Los Angeles-based industrial design consultancy Stuart Karten Design, emerged as the public's favorite design.
Zon transforms the standard beige, shapeless hearing aid into a dynamic, sculptural object that ergonomically embraces the geometry of the ear while taking advantage of the latest technology to provide the highest audio quality.
Research shows that hearing impaired listeners wait up to eight years before being fitted with a hearing aid because of its perceived association with disability and weakness.
Virtually invisible when placed behind the ear, Zon turns the hearing aid into a high-performance object while providing unhampered communication and a modern alternative to a traditional design.
The device was developed for Starkey Laboratories, a leading global supplier of hearing technology.
“I’m delighted that the public has chosen to honor an object that marries design with technological innovation. The success of Zon demonstrates that good design can indeed have a transformative impact on our everyday lives,” said Cooper-Hewitt director Paul Warwick Thompson. Based in Marina del Rey, Calif., Stuart Karten Design is an award-winning, full-service industrial design consultancy that works across a range of practices, including medical devices, consumer electronics, transportation and housewares.
Karten is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, served as the former chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America and currently sits on the advisory board to the University of Southern California master’s program in Medical Device and Diagnostic Engineering.
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