Everybody's Mobility/Senior Mobility Aids
For this collaborative project our Advanced Digital Art and Design students were approached by a local company called Senior Mobility Aids. The company's representative Allen Newsome came to the class to give the students the design brief and some fodder for empathy research. He explained to the class that his family has had this business for some time now, and have worked with the disabled community for some time providing wheelchairs and mobility devices. Additionally they work with insurance companies, hospitals, etc to provide mobility to patients of all kinds. During his talk with students, Allen shared the motivation behind what they do as a family run business, their true desire to improve the health and quality of life of their clients, even going so far as to provide wheelchair and mobility services to local tourist spots like the San Diego Zoo. Their mission, as Allen put it is to truly improve the quality of life for those with disabilities as well as their families etc. Needless to say it was powerful having Allen in the room explaining to the student designers his passion. His design problem was twofold, first, his company needed a branding update and was looking to create a new logo that would evoke the idea of mobility and freedom for their clientele. Second, they were starting a direct to consumer branch of the business to sell mobility devices, braces, etc to the general public which would be called "Everybody's Mobility" and they needed branding for that as well. The students took off on this task and came up with some great ideas. Ultimately two were chosen and are now being used by Senior Mobility Aids and Everybody's Mobility. This was a great project for the students to see how empathy in design is paramount to design for good in the world.