Named after Ernest O. Lawrence, UC Berkeley’s first Nobel Laureate, The Lawrence Hall of Science’s wide-ranging products, services, and tools developed organically over half a century. To begin to make sense of the breadth and depth of its offerings, IDEO asked leadership and staff to surface the myriad activities, audiences, and relationships with external partners, enabling the group to visualize—and make sense of—the totality of The Lawrence brand.

During in-depth research with parents and kids, educators, and experts, IDEO discovered that each of these audiences had distinct mindsets. Parents and kids engaged with The Lawrence to explore, have fun, and dive deeper into a specific topic. Educators utilized it for professional learning opportunities and to discover new, exciting classroom tools. While experts, including UC Berkeley faculty, STEM educators across the US, and funders, viewed the center as a resource for best-in-class STEM education research. The mindsets highlighted The Lawrence’s unique capabilities, but the complexity also created some opportunity areas, including ways to use storytelling to create emotional resonance around The Lawrence’s core values and how to design a unified narrative to connect the dots across audiences and offers.

Building on its strengths as an institution and the identified opportunity areas, IDEO created a modern, vibrant, and flexible brand that strategically and visually unites all of The Lawrence’s offerings, working across digital and physical media. Grounded by a grid system, the updated brand identity is simultaneously rigorous and fun, featuring a bright color palette and signature retro-cool super-nova mark. Different offerings are bundled together based on different audience needs, preventing confusion and easing navigation. Even the name of the science museum, The Lawrence Hall of Science, was updated to a more contemporary and approachable, The Lawrence, inspired by The Met.

The Lawrence unveiled its new brand with much fanfare in late 2018 as part of its year-long 50th anniversary celebrations. Visitors can see the updated identity across all public-facing elements, including The Lawrence’s website, curriculum and educator materials, letterhead, collateral, and exhibition and wayfinding signage. The redesigned brand has been credited with bolstering the popularity of the science center among families and schools and causing ticket sales to return to—and exceed—pre-pandemic levels. Internally, the rebranding effort has helped generate excitement and energy across departments, helping solidify a collective future strategy and vision for its next 50 years.

The Lawrence Hall of Science’s diverse offerings had grown extensively over the decades, creating a confusing and disjointed experience for its various audiences. On the eve of its 50th anniversary, Lawrence leadership sought a brand refresh to better connect with its target audiences and differentiate itself in the STEM education ecosystem.

Over $6M in new funding

raised to transform and modernize The Lawrence, thanks to IDEO's rebranding effort

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When Greene King approached IDEO in early 2022, it was (and still is) one of the UK’s leading hospitality brands, with over 2,600 pubs, restaurants, and hotels. At that time, consumers in the UK and other parts of the world were beginning to rediscover the joys of travel after years of pandemic lockdowns. Greene King’s newly formed Venture Hotels Team wanted to understand how guest expectations had shifted during Covid-19 and how a new customer-centric hotel brand and signature service experience might meet—or exceed—their expectations.

To get inspired, the IDEO team interviewed a range of travelers of different ages and backgrounds, met with hospitality and luxury experts, and conducted immersion visits, including visiting high-end hotels. The research revealed modern travelers want unique hotel experiences that cater to their curiosity, support local communities, and are environmentally sustainable. Luxury, which once meant “exclusive,” was now about enabling one-of-a-kind cultural experiences. Today’s travelers value inclusivity, accessibility, and well-being; they want to feel welcome, do things at their own pace and have thoughtfully curated options to choose from. They also expect hospitality practices to be ethical and sustainable, contributing to the welfare of local communities and the planet.  

Building off this research, IDEO crafted a new entry proposition for Greene King’s new Everly Hotels Collection called “The Discover Collection,” which leverages the best parts of a classic British pub and inn—bespoke historic locations full of character, culture, and stories—while offering guests a modern experience from pre-arrival to departure, all grounded in supporting the communities they are in.

Signature moments include a warm welcome during check-in, as well as staff recommendations and local maps highlighting neighborhood gems. During their stay, guests enjoy expansive seasonal food menus, as well as a beverage menu that includes a wide variety of locally brewed, distilled, and crafted drinks by local suppliers. Rooms feature a smuggler's treasure chest with a surprise treat. Art and books from local talent are on display throughout the hotel, and local experts lead activities and events. Guests tangibly experience Greene King’s commitment to sustainability through its use of local materials, produce, talent, and partnerships, all designed to support the surrounding community. Upon departure, guests receive a personalized postcard.

In addition to the hotel experience moments, IDEO delivered branding recommendations for The Everly Hotels Collection, including visual identity and tone of voice that provide a cohesive look and feel for the collection of hotels while simultaneously showcasing each property's unique character. This was all packaged as an experience playbook, with design principles and briefs to help guide implementation decision-making across Greene King’s marketing, digital, interior design, and food and beverage teams.

A few months after the project ended, Greene King launched The Everly Hotels Collection. Its pilot hotel, The White Horses in Rottingdean, East Sussex, opened within the year. The new brand and guest experience strengthened bonds with Greene King’s loyal customers and first-time guests, ensuring the brand's relevance and appeal in a competitive market. More hotels are planned in the future in other scenic UK locations.  

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Greene King wanted guests to have a consistent brand experience while maintaining the storied charm that makes each property unique.

2 years

from concept to the launch of Greene King’s boutique Everly Hotels Collection

1 pilot hotel

The White Horses opened in Rottingdean in 2024

The hard drive space is full of companies competing over technology and performance. But iodyne wanted to add another layer, focusing on user needs and product aesthetics to better position the company to meet the values of a broader audience and create compelling new entrants into this crowded market.

Together, IDEO and iodyne jumped into in-depth discovery research to learn more about the needs of their end users. The team sat down with photographers, videographers, and digital imaging technicians, asking questions about their file management systems, how they used hard drives in the field, and how they stored them for transport and at home. They also headed to the source, visiting studios and home office set-ups to understand the full range of potential use cases.

A few big discoveries leaped out. No one had a single storage solution to rely on. Users constantly transferred data from different hard drives designed for different purposes (in the field versus at home), accumulating hundreds of old hard drives over time. Traditional hard drives also don’t allow multiple users to work off them simultaneously or come with software systems that help keep projects and tasks organized, protected, and sharable. Meanwhile, the ever-shrinking size and weight of laptops—and people’s willingness to take them everywhere—set a new benchmark for portability, one that iodyne could lean into.

With these and other insights in hand, the team brought unrivaled performance and aesthetics together to create a far superior user experience. IDEO and iodyne developed Pro Data’s engineering architecture, collaborating on thermal performance analysis, material choice, inspection of sample parts, and even packaging design. By combining integrated venting, multiple laptop-quality fans, smart power management, and 20 thermal sensors, the team was able to minimize cooling fan loads and reduce noise and power consumption. A single, centralized, and consolidated storage space makes sharing data among teammates easy, too—up to four computers can connect to the Pro Data at the same time and access the same files. The redesigned Pro Data creates new value for consumers in a highly mobile, secure package that can go from desktop to backpack and back again.

The iodyne Pro Data hard drive launched in 2021 to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Storage Review wrote “Nothing else comes close to this level of performance in a package this size,” while Jemery Boros of StarGate Studios said “I don’t think I could have done the shoot without Pro Data. It was easy to use, fast, and kept all of our data safe on the other side of the world.” The drives have since been used in the making of major motion pictures from F1 to A Complete Unknown.

Spurred by Pro Data’s success, iodyne decided to create a second product with IDEO, a Pro Mini that could provide the same cutting-edge performance and sleek design but scaled down to fit the needs of customers who required less storage capacity in an even more portable package. Pairing Pro phone-quality industrial design with a unique internal solid-state cooling architecture that imposed key constraints on airflow was critical.

IDEO worked with iodyne to create the Pro Mini’s internal layout and collaborated with an emerging engineering company to incorporate novel solid-state cooling technology, positioning the vents to maximize airflow and optimizing how users physically interact with the device. The team also addressed users’ durability concerns, advising iodyne on part selection as samples came in from vendors. The new Pro Mini is set to ship in the second half of 2025.

Hard drives are essential tools of the trade for people with large troves of media to store and transfer, like photographers and videographers. But beyond rolls of masking tape and label makers, there isn’t an easy way to see what’s on each drive without literally going through them one by one.  

Traditional hard drives generate a lot of heat and need fans to cool them, making them bulky, loud, and slowing transfer speeds.  

Many external hard drives are treated like commodities. They’re designed for mass production rather than for durability and aesthetics.

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2 cutting-edge hard drives

to market in 3 years

LACDMH is the nation’s largest public mental health department, serving over 10 million people. The agency provides critical support for the most vulnerable, including staffing a toll-free, 24/7 Help Line. Since late 2024, more than 70 Field Intervention Teams—comprised of mental health clinicians (social workers, psychologists, licensed psychiatric technicians, and registered nurses) and community health workers (trained peers or community members with lived experience)—have been dispatched around the county to help de-escalate mental health crises quickly, compassionately, and without force.

Because those experiencing a crisis are often too disoriented, confused, or otherwise unable to seek help for themselves, IDEO’s communication strategy targeted reaching “trusted messengers”—parents, spouses, siblings, and friends of people who have a mood or personality disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The campaign aimed to define mental health crises, help people understand what to expect when they call, build trust in FITs, and divert mental health crisis calls away from 911.

To understand what drives these specially trained mental health professionals to do this type of work—and what sparks trusted messengers to call for help—IDEO met and interviewed former clients and loved ones who had reached out to the county for support during a mental health crisis. The team also interviewed multiple FIT staff to learn more about how they approach clients and families.

The research inspired the communication strategy’s central idea: position FIT members as real-life superheroes and first responders. By associating FITs with that term, the campaign changes the narrative and communicates their compassion and expertise to those in crisis. Custom illustrated portraits feature actual FIT staff in strong, action-figure-style poses, while a bright, eye-catching color palette and clear, direct language convey confidence and inspire trust.

The team explored their initial design directions in a series of focus groups with LA residents, trusted messengers, and county and mental health workers to better understand the impact of the potential messaging and visuals. The research uncovered the importance of clarity, even in an inherently emotional situation. The  IDEO team discovered that transparency—and real personal stories—would be the key to building public trust in ACR.

Between March and June of 2025, the robust awareness campaign will run across LA County in a number of languages on city buses, in Metro stations, on social media, streaming TV,  radio, and more. An updated landing page on LACDMH’s website includes in-depth information and educational videos about mental health crises, as well as heartfelt testimonials from staff and former clients who have been helped by the service.

LA County Department of Mental Health created an innovative new program to provide urgent, compassionate care to Angelenos experiencing a mental health crisis but needed help driving awareness of its service across the region.

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Calling 911 is an entrenched behavior in an emergency. However, dispatching police officers who are not trained in mental health can make a bad situation worse. In 2022, 39 percent of people shot by LA police officers were in the midst of a mental health crisis.

172 million impressions

delivered via digital and physical ads across LA

50% increase

in calls to the ACR helpline, year-over-year, attributed to IDEO’s awareness messaging

24%

of Angelenos now name LACDMH as the first to call in a mental health crisis, leapfrogging 911 or the police, which slipped 14.3 points

In one sentence, who are you?

I'm a creative jack of all trades, I guess, which can be useful but is often frustrating, especially because I'm surrounded by very talented people with a depth of skill and knowledge that always feels out of reach for me.

What do you do? How did you learn it?

These days, I mainly make music and podcasts. I write and sing songs under the name The One AM Radio, I've scored some film and TV, and I make beats in a project called Moors. The podcasts I make are called Song Exploder, in which musicians trace the creative decisions that went into a song of theirs, and The West Wing Weekly, in which the Aaron Sorkin TV series is discussed in detail. As far as how I learned—I studied graphic design in school and I think that had a big influence on how I think about things. With music, I mainly learned by listening to others talk about what they do. That became the basis for starting a podcast, too; Song Exploder is about listening closely.

3 favorite possessions?

1. My computer (whatever it is at any given time, it's my way into everything)
2. My custom Healy electric guitar (it looks and sounds beautiful, and it's the first time I'd ever had anything custom-made)
3. My house (it's small but peaceful and cozy, it's where I live and work, and it feels like an extension of who I am).

What does a typical work session look like?

Part of the garage at my house was converted into an office, which I use as a makeshift recording studio. I have my computer, my piano, and my guitars in there. I sit in front of the computer, and usually work in two-hour bursts until my focus runs out. Then I pace around the backyard and in and out of the house for a while until my ears and my brain settle back down, and then get back to work. I usually start in the early afternoon and work until pretty late into the night.

How do you get over creative block?

I'll let you know once I figure it out. I started Song Exploder in part because of writer's block in my own songwriting…and I'm still not sure that I've gotten through it.

How do you see the world in 2078?

At this point, I'm just hoping there will still be a world left to see in 2078.

What’s your number one bucket list item?

One casualty of my dilettantism is that I don't have a a number one bucket list item. I have three items that might rank at number four, though: I'd like to produce a feature film, design my own house, and see all seven continents. But if none of them happened, I'd find something else.

Who are you creative crushin’ on lately?

I am in love with the music of Grouper and the prints of Phil Chang, who is pushing at the edge of what photography can be.

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Podcasts are the most important medium of our time. That’s right. They provide a meritocratic platform, and the best of them verge on art. One such podcast, Song Exploder, introduced me to the creative talent of Hrishikesh Hirway about three years ago. Since then, Hrishi and I have kept in touch—he even gave a visiting lecture on the intersection of sound and graphic design at our San Francisco studio. Like all of us at IDEO, Hrishi approaches every project as a design problem. I was thrilled to again catch up with him in this installment of Creative Crushes.

I’ve always been a self-taught coder, so a few months back, I decided I’d get a jump on AR by playing around with 3D coding. What better way to figure it out than to create 3D dancing avatars of my friends so I can host virtual dance parties? (The idea may have been inspired by some of my previous work.)

So I went around asking my colleagues if I could 3D-scan them. I know what you’re thinking: How did I get anyone to agree to this? When I asked people to be scanned, they were so excited to "be 3D" they didn't even ask what I was going to do with the scans.

Left: IDEO CTO Tom Eich IRL. Right: Tom's 3D model mid-groove.

Once I got the scans, I "rigged" them—meaning, I gave them bones. Once they had bones, I could assign motion capture dance data to them that I pulled using 3D software. Finally, I loaded them into my code, which I had written with the help of countless tutorials on three.js, an API for 3D graphics. I created a desktop, AR, and VR version so that people could experience the dance party in the reality of their choosing. (3D assets in motion are surprisingly easy to transition between realities.)

The IDDDEO New York dance floor.

Tom Eich dancing in AR.

When participants saw their avatars in motion, they were definitely confused; for many, it was their first time seeing themselves in 3D. Being able to rotate a camera 360 degrees to see yourself from every angle is just not possible in reality, especially when you’re in motion. Most people immediately pointed out all the color/modeling imperfections in their 3D likenesses that resulted from my use of (what is clearly) an off-the-shelf 3D scanner.

Once the studio saw their coworkers’ 3D models dancing, everyone wanted an invite to the dance party. My fellow tinkerer Danny DeRuntz even brought the party to IDEO Cambridge, where he had long lines of people waiting to be scanned in.

The IDDDEO Cambridge dance floor.

My next endeavor will be creating an audio-visual beat machine that lets anyone sample and manipulate YouTube clips using my own pseudo format, AZZ. (Here’s a demo for the curious.) In the meantime, I’ll be fine-tuning the 3D dance code in hopes of eventually bringing this experience to real life parties in NYC. Sadly, elegant and portable 3D body scanning does not yet appear to be a thing. Hopefully soon?

Check out the dance floor and create your own party here.

Want to follow the project? I’ll be posting updates on my Instagram.

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As an interaction designer, I’m always testing my limits and teaching myself new technologies. And whenever possible, I like to use those new tricks to make people smile. My projects often have no purpose other than giving me an excuse to play on the computer. But I’ve found that combining my passion for the absurd with my passion for learning new tools can lead to glorious outcomes.

As designers who have worked on multiple preparedness and relief projects, we start by understanding why people choose not to prepare, then identify ways to make resilience easier.

Just like buying life insurance, or saving for a rainy day, a future emergency is an abstraction that’s hard to connect to our day-to-day priorities. And unlike seeing everyone else’s trash cans line the curb once a week, preparedness doesn’t have any visible prompts to encourage all of us to get with the program.

Symbols of participation can be powerful change agents, and we know that something as simple as filling out a checklist or talking about a plan can make the abstract tangible.

So what can you do today, for tomorrow?

Break down the process into bite-sized tasks, attach them to a concrete timetable, and connect with the people around you. By building strong connections with your community and taking the time to create a plan, you’ll be more equipped when the big one hits (whatever the big one might be.)

Here are a few simple steps to get you started—collaboratively—in just a week. Share this with your family, your roommate, your colleagues, or your book club.

Now: Follow Local Alerts

Make sure you know what’s going on around you. Follow local emergency alerts from the Fire Department and/or your local Department of Emergency Management on the social media platform you use most (Twitter, Facebook, NextDoor, etc.).

Tomorrow: Copy Your Documents

Scan and store a copy of your important documents. Take a photo of or scan your driver’s license, passport, lease/ownership documents, social security card, and other important documents. Save them (somewhere safe) in the cloud.

This weekend: Gather Your Stuff

Start assembling an emergency kit. Print out a of essentials, useful stuff, and personal items to get started. You’ll be surprised at how much you already have—it’s just a matter of getting it all in one place. And when it comes to supplies, a good rule of thumb is to have enough for three days.

Next week: Make a Plan

Make an emergency plan with your people. Have friends or family over for dinner and hatch it together. It’s like giving a spare key to a neighbor. Do it once, and hopefully, you'll never need to use it.

Cross these four things off your list, and we’ll all be better off when the next wildfire or bomb cyclone hits.

This winter, wildfires raged across California. The air has been heavy with smoke and thick with the power of Mother Nature. And the Left Coast isn’t the only place to be hit by a natural disaster recently (Hello Eastern Seaboard, Houston, Puerto Rico, Florida). As climate change accelerates, getting prepared is on all of our minds.

I took this picture at the beach festival in Chiba, Japan. Sudden rain is hard to avoid in the Japanese summer. When it started pouring at the beach, a man covered himself with the tarp he had been sitting on. After about five minutes, a bunch of people joined him under the tarp, which had been turned into an improvised umbrella. I loved that the man helped his fellow festival-goers escape the rain without a second thought.

Human-centered design requires us to observe human behavior with beginner's eyes, so that we can spot the innate ways people interact with the world around them. We call these intuitive and unconscious reactions Thoughtless Acts, and IDEO designers collect photos of them to inspire their work.

I help organizations cut through complexity by shaping how they show up, through brand strategy, identity, and storytelling.

Working at the intersection of brand and business, I bring an editorial eye and a bias toward making—turning ideas into tangible experiences that people can understand, trust, and believe in.

My work spans government, healthcare, financial services, media, and consumer goods, from launching Gen Z-focused ventures to building innovation labs and reimagining legacy brands. I relish moments of ambiguity and enjoy translating across teams, perspectives, and priorities to move ideas forward.

I started my career in editorial and digital design, shaping cross-platform experiences and identity systems in publishing and agency environments. That foundation still shapes how I work today: I’m detail-oriented, collaborative, and overreliant on the Oxford comma. I hold a BFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For 25 years, I've asked the same question: Who does this design exclude—and what are we going to do about it?

My work spans human-centered strategy, inclusive design, and qualitative research, with clients ranging from Microsoft, Google, and Verizon to the National Science Foundation, and San Francisco Unified School District.

Before IDEO, I taught elementary school in East Palo Alto and spent a decade doing design work with social service organizations—where I learned firsthand what it costs people when systems are built without them in mind.

I am currently writing User Error, a nonfiction book about digital access and the design decisions behind it. I live in Oakland, California.

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My expertise spans brand, communication, and product design across tech, education, the arts, and social impact.

I believe great work demands both high-level vision and obsessive attention to detail, and only happens through collaboration.

I bring an inclusive, hands-on approach and a deep understanding of business, which enables me to consistently deliver excellence while always asking why.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at the brand firms Pentagram and VSA Partners. I began my career as a designer, leading teams at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum. I hold an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA in communication design from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and have taught at some of the best design schools in the US.

I am responsible for IDEO’s long-term success in China and working with clients to use design as a tool to enable growth. Specifically, I have helped Chinese companies design holistic brand solutions through the development of their products, communication, services, and innovation teams, and I have helped multinationals expand their presence and influence in China.

I advise global leaders on developing China-led innovation and capabilities.

In over 15 years in IDEO Shanghai, I have worked on projects that use design to elevate the quality of the experience of healthcare products and services, streamline processes that increase productivity, create spaces and programs that promote and enable inclusive communities, and build next generation mobility solutions that are planet-positive.

Before joining IDEO, I worked at Philips Electronics and the Electrolux Group in Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore on a number of breakthrough commercial products. I am a member of the Young President Organization in Shanghai.