Medical Cryogenic Vial Machine
As lead designer on this project for Speck Design, I owned the industrial design from the ground up: overall form, material and color, and the user interface, all developed in parallel with the client's mechanical and electronic engineering while it was still being refined.
Cryogenic Automation Designed to Be Seen
The design process ran in close step with the client's engineering development, requiring the form and interface to adapt continuously as internal components evolved. Rapid physical prototyping and iterative CAD refinement kept the design grounded in real constraints, allowing decisions to be made quickly and collaboratively rather than in isolation from the engineering team.
The device automates a thaw that used to require a tech to stand and watch it. The real value was freeing them to do other work, but that only holds if they can tell where the device is in its cycle from anywhere in the lab, by sight and by sound. The small OLED the engineering team proposed failed that test the moment you stepped back from it. I replaced it with a clock-inspired ring of light, paired with audio, so the status is legible across the workspace with nothing new to learn.
This design reached production as the ThawSTAR line. It launched identical to my final renders; the version on the market today has evolved a little and carries a different logo.