Press Release
Unity Biometric Capture TabletPC by Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis Is Granted the Bronze A' Design Award in Security, Safety and Surveillance Products Design
Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis of Créa Inc Design acknowledged for security, safety and surveillance products design by the international grand jury of the 2015 - 2016 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 22, 2016 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Bronze A' Design Award in the Security, Safety and Surveillance Products Design category for Unity Biometric Capture TabletPC by Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis of Créa Inc Design, designed for Crea Inc Design LTD. The result belongs to the 2015 - 2016 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who scored anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
The Bronze A' Design Award Explained
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
About Unity Biometric Capture TabletPC
Unity is a rugged handheld biometric capture tablet computer made to register and identify people in remote areas without network access. Multiple biometric sensors and a 64-bit computer are combined in one compact sealed case. Dual irises, faces and fingerprints can be recorded from hands or from surfaces, and the captured profiles can be matched on the device. The housing is built from rubber and hard plastic, and simple cylinder and block forms cover the complex sensors. A careful internal layout and dedicated cooling parts allow high performance within a small sealed enclosure.
About Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis
With more than 20 years of award winning in-house & consultancy product design experience, my career focus is industrial design, innovation strategy, and high quality production. Crea Inc was started in 2004 in Colorado to work for a small tech startup there, and has continued successfully serving clients across the US, Europe, and globally. It is currently based in Bristol UK, a creative capital of Britain. Creative challenges are my passion and am always searching for opportunities to bring great products into the world.
About Créa Inc Design
With almost 20 years of award winning experience, Travis and the team at Créa combine industrial design, brand & innovation strategy, and production management. This facilitates focused & successful product development in every part of the produ
Award Record
With this recognition, Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis of Créa Inc Design is a winner of 3 A' Design Awards. The awards were granted between the 2013 - 2014 and the 2015 - 2016 editions of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Security, Safety and Surveillance Products Design Award
The A' Security Products Design Award is an international product design competition recognizing good security products by best designers and brands worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to security products designers, industrial designers, security equipment manufacturers and surveillance products manufacturers from all countries. Typical entries include CCTV cameras, alarm systems, access controls, biometric scanners, surveillance drones and security locks. The awarded security products designs are published at https://designers.org/design-category/security-products
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://designers.org/47286
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/47286
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!47286
- Laureate Profile: https://designers.org/d/123627
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.corvusid.com/
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Unity Biometric Capture TabletPC
- Function
- Biometric Capture TabletPC
- Category
- Security, Safety and Surveillance Products Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Electronics & Appliances and Social Impact
- Colors
- Dark Slate Gray, Dim Gray, Dark Gray, Lavender and Black
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Crea Inc Design LTD
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Travis Baldwin, Keith Grethen, Bill Willis
- Country
- Great Britain
- Brand
- Créa Inc Design
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2015 - 2016
- Design ID
- #47286
Credits
- Team
- Jeff Kormanec, Steven Muir, Bill Willis, Chris Dopp, Keith Grethen, Ted Stein and Travis Baldwin
- Image Credits
- Photographer Travis Baldwin, Unity Photos, 2015. Illustrator Travis Baldwin, Unity Renderings, 2015-2016.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Unity combines multiple biometric sensors & a 64bit PC in a rugged design. It captures dual irises, faces, & fingerprints from surfaces or by scanner. They can be matched against millions of profiles stored on the device instantly. It’s optimized for size, packing more power & sensors in the smallest package available. Users include customs, border, military, emergency, & ID programs. It’s perfect for identifying people in remote, disconnected locations, such as medical treatment in rural India.
- Inspiration
- Unity was inspired by needs for a mobile, off the grid, identity device capturing multiple biometric signatures & processing within the same product. It’s the next step in multimodal biometrics as a high quality, economical, & integrated solution. Aesthetics build upon our established design language, combining rubber grips and hard plastic coversets. Exterior design simplifies the dozen complex sensors into simple shapes like cylinders and blocks. Design cues strive for ‘serious’ ‘rugged’ look.
- Research
- Research was done for many areas of Unity. For user ergonomics, concept models were evaluated for comfort near sensor locations & component ‘lumps’. Layouts optimized grip, sensor exposure, & usage. Accessories would attach to Unity but had to fold flat, requiring material research for folding shapes. To cool the processor, workshops explored aesthetics & functionality concepts, then were evaluated in FEA models. Ultimately, physical cooling parts were made & tested. Sealing research studied existing products, evaluated techniques, and applied the learning to Unity.
- Challenge
- The main challenge was packing so much in the small product enclosure w/out sacrificing quality, performance, or aesthetics. We had to fit the device in a fixed size envelope, with ip54 sealing & effective cooling. We started conceptualizing different layouts, evaluating often against the brief. Best designs fit both usage & design goals. Engineering details such as structure, doors, material layers, cooling, sealing, etc. were added, filling the internal space. The basic form is literally packed with electronics, sensors, lenses, batteries, air passages, & internal structure.
- Realization and Technology
- Unity was a ‘clean-sheet’ design creating a new product from a loose brief. We started with an electronic spec, capture needs, general markets, & size. Unity was planned, parts were used for layout concepts, then reviewed for user & design benefits. Foam models allowed ergonomics refinement. For thermal issues, FEA modeling was done. Exterior design built upon layout favorites, exterior form was sketched, then detailed into robust parts. Ideas evolved & features were added, improving function & ease of use Hardware was verified in working prototypes. Accessories were later designed.
- Operation and Interaction
- Unity is a stand-alone, biometric capture pc to register & identify people off the network. It is for: registering people, recognizing people, & evidence capture at crime scenes. In registration/ID, the user would bring the camera to the subject’s face level, capture face & iris images, then position fingers to scan prints. Profiles are logged or matched against saved profiles. Alarms trigger for wanted people. For police, Unity records biometrics, body art, crime scene, & fingerprints from surfaces. It is also a normal PC for email, video chat, navigation, and programs.
- Project Duration and Location
- The project started in December 2013, in San Carlos California (USA), Washington D.C. (USA), and Bristol, UK. The project was first produced in September 2014 and further design revisions were carried out until July 2015.
- Specifications
- Unity combines a PC, storage, antenna, battery, & interface w/ biometric sensors, lens, & illuminators in a small rugged package. It has a dual 1.8 Ghz 64 bit chip, 256 gb ssd, 4 gb ram, GPS, wifi, & 4G. There are hot swap & standby batteries, 5” multi-touch daylight screen, & an ip54 sealed case. An accessory sunshade, passport reader, & fingerprint stand can be attached. Fingerprint sensor, Iris & Face Camera, distance sensor, & multispectral LED are used for capture. It uses windows 10 & Raven DB software. It is TPE rubber, PC-ABS plastic, metal, and glass filters. 18.3 x 10.7 x 7.4 cm, 1.13 Kg.
- Keywords
- Biometric, Camera, Iris, Face, Recognition, Rugged, TabletPC, Fingerprint, Multi-Modal
