Philips Design magazine is now an email newsletter

Philips Design magazine used to be published three to four times a year, but the last edition was from July 2007. Now it has been turned into a simple newsletter, that comes to you via email (not rss).

The articles in the first (September 2008) edition are very short, very corporate, and therefore a bit on the shallow side – with none of the edginess of let’s say a Vodafone Receiver magazine:

• A better way to wake up: how an alarm clock that wakes you up with light is more in tune with people’s natural patterns and rhythms, who are increasingly interested by the way in slowing down;
• A brand on its best behavior: how design plays a crucial role in maintaining consistency in how people experience and perceive the brand;
• Two Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA Awards) for Philips Design: a Silver award for the Philips Moisturizing Shaving System and a Bronze for the Chulha low-smoke stove;
• Interview with Simona Rocchi, senior director “Design for Sustainability” on responsible design – a discussion which strangely positions user-centred design and environmentally and socially sustainable design as two separate issues. It doesn’t tackle the interesting position, advocated by e.g. Nathan Shedroff, that user-centred design is inherently more sustainable, although the example of their ‘Chulha’ project seems to imply exactly that.

The newsletter also contains an event calendar.