Phoenix Design

Managing Partner Andreas Diefenbach zeichnet zusammen mit der internationalen Jury des German Design Award "Best Practices" im Design aus.
 

The boundaries are fluid. Every six months, the team structure at Phoenix Design changes. On the one hand, this is due to the gap left by past interns, on the other hand, it is due to the new input - which everyone brings with their own skillset, experiences, and personalities.

Out of four entries, three products were honoured with the highest award Best of Best at the Iconic Awards Innovative Architecture 2021, which Phoenix Design developed together with its partner hansgrohe.

Ever wondered what we mean when we talk about “Logik, Moral, Magie”? For more than 10 years those three words stuck within our DNA when it comes to designing products. Today we want to take a closer look at them.

At raumprobe Stuttgart, our Senior Designer Veronika Schmidt-Schäffer was invited to take part in the panel discussion of "GesundeRunde" together with Tilla Goldberg, Director Product Design of the Ippolito Fleitz Group and Hannes Bäuerle, Founder and Managing Director of raumprobe.

120 years of hansgrohe and 25 years of hansgrohe in China - a reason to celebrate, at least where it is already possible again: in Shanghai.

Former intern, now working student - Aditi Surana, student in France and India talks about her impressions as an intern at Phoenix Design. Well then: Here's to many more exciting projects we can work on together!

We spent a week looking at what #DignifiedAging means to us, how our prdoucts contribute to dignified ageing and improve people's wellbeing. Here are our findings:

On last Tuesday, 25.05.2021, the annual China Sanitary Ware Innovation Summit took place in Shanghai. In addition to several general managers of well-known manufacturers in the sanitary industry, Phoenix was invited to shed light on the design perspective of innovations.

Phoenix Design and its customer hansgrohe win the highest award at the German Innovation Award 2021 - Gold for the Pulsify shower system. In addition, another five Winner awards in various disciplines - an outstanding result for Phoenix Design and its customers!

It's that time again - we have new YoYos! On 30 August, our "summer interns" Aditi and Adrian presented the results of their joint final project. And one thing in advance: we love them (the YoYos and our interns).

Phoenix wins with its customer Hansgrohe a total of 19 Winner awards at the iF Design Award 2021 competition in a wide variety of disciplines - an outstandingly beautiful result for Phoenix and its customers. We are particularly pleased about the additional award from the Phoenix Design Academy.

The final project of our interns has always offered the opportunity for an intensive examination of innovative, sustainable materials. This year, the traditional YoYo design is to be made from recycled plastic!

Earth Day - April 22: more than 200 tech companies have launched a joint campaign: Time for Climate Action. As an innovation and design studio, Phoenix Design has the opportunity to draw attention sustainability early in the product development process. We are committed to this, along with several other climate goals for 2021!

In order to shape the future in a world that is moving faster and faster, it may be time to say goodbye to the idea of fixed current and target states and create space for development. This way, more flexible urban structures and more sustainable products could emerge.

How can we provide people with physical mobility that matches their digital freedom of movement?

Phoenix Design is honored with 10 awards by the international jury of the Red Dot Award Product Design. With a whole series of Winner awards, the international jury recognizes the design achievements of Phoenix Design and its customers hansgrohe, Rolf Hartge, as well as Deli and Delicacy.

In the interview of the digital magazine of the material database raumprobe, Senior Designer Veronika Schmidt-Schäffer, Senior Design Modeller Marc Michalak and Design Director, Matthias Oesterle report on inspirations and trends in material and color design. They are already a well-established team when it comes to the right choice of colors, materials and surfaces.

The jury of the Iconic Awards: Innovative Interior 2021 honors Phoenix Design and Hansgrohe no less than five times: RainButton, LavaPura, RainPad, FinishPlus and RainTunes convince the international jury.

Congratulations to this result of their master thesis SolMate. We highly appreciate the competences in sustainability at Phoenix Design.

Perhaps the oldest tradition at Phoenix Design meets the new ritual, a modern philosophy of design. The result is a material study as a continuing part of our coffee system nunc.: a reinterpretation of the yo-yo as a prototype of human-product interaction.

Phoenix Design and its customer hansgrohe win the highest award at the German Design Award 2021 - a gold award for the flexibly placeable RainButton control elements. In addition, 4 more Winner Awards in various disciplines - an outstanding result for Phoenix Design and its customers.

An interview by Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner, Phoenix Design in the renowned d+a magazine about user-centered design using RainTunes as an example.

SMART LIVING WITH LOGIC, MORALS, MAGIC - Interview of Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner Phoenix Design in Chinese Package & Design Magazine. The detailed answers give deep insights into the world of Phoenix Design.

They say the future belongs to courageous companies. But what happens when courage, sense and perspective fall? We are looking forward to this year's CTO Autumn Forum of the Dieselkuratorium on October 16, 2020 in Berlin in the tension between fragility and robustness!

Phoenix Design is guest at a big AXOR event in Kunming, South China! Our senior designer Lun Yeh is one of the main speakers of the evening, talking about the intersection of design and luxury.

In order to meet the growing need for flexibility, a rethink is necessary: the journey must become the destination, traffic areas and means of transport must become a space that can be used in a variety of ways. The Phoenix Academy concept VESSEL by Konstantin Wolf provides an approach to situation-adaptable, mobile space in the hybrid areas of urban coastal regions. An innovative perspective on the multifaceted issue of mobility.

Time to celebrate! Once again this year, Phoenix Design - together with its long-standing partner hansgrohe - was honoured at the Iconic Award 2020: Innovative Architecture. We are happy to receive 3x "Best of Best" and 1x "Winner" in this international competition.

We now live in an experience economy in which a consistent search for the "less" promotes the "more" in physical and mental well-being. A new, sensual minimalism conquers the world. Social trends show a growing need for decelerating moments in an accelerating everyday life.

Phoenix Design is honoured to receive 11 awards at the Red Dot Design Award 2020, among them one Best of the Best for the hansgrohe kitchen faucet Aquno Select M81. The international panel of nearly 40 jurors honoured only 76 of the more than 6,500 submitted products from 48 categories with the competition’s top accolade, the “Best of the Best”.

How about the future of mobility in urban coastal regions? How can flexible means of transport be seamlessly linked to the rigid architectural stock while being redefined?

Tianchen Liu worked for his master's thesis at Delft University of Technology on the drum kits of the future in collaboration with the Phoenix Design Academy. "Collector" is the concept for an intelligent drum kit that fundamentally brings emotions that connect drummers and their drums into new acoustic possibilities. More >>>

PHOENIX, together with their client hansgrohe, wins the highest award in the iF DESIGN AWARD 2020 competition: an iF DESIGN AWARD in GOLD for the RainTunes shower scenario. Plus another 9 iF DESIGN AWARDs in various disciplines – an outstandingly brilliant result for PHOENIX and their customers.

A successful article in the well-known Chinese magazine Art and Design after an interview with Andreas Diefenbach (Stuttgart) and Yifan Zang (Shanghai), both managing partners of PHOENIX DESIGN:

3x Gold and 10x Winner. Grandiose result at the German Design Award 2020 and the festive award ceremony on 07.02.2020 in Frankfurt. PHOENIX and its customers AXOR, hansgrohe, Bora, Stiebel Eltron, Isimat, Jotec, Luqel and Vorwerk are delighted about these awards. Creating smart, meaningful and substantial brand experiences is the claim in PHOENIX's design language, and it runs through all industries. Here it is kitchen-household, bathroom wellness, medical technology, industrial products and even apps. The jury has honoured these achievements.

Phoenix Design accompanied the international Conference for Digital Transformation on 25–26 September 2019 in Berlin with a speech and subsequent round of discussions. Together with its client STIEBEL ELTRON, Phoenix Design represented by Design Business Manager Felix Mattes showed how an initially small design project may end up transforming an entire company.

How do you keep up a collaborative creative spirit when you become remote-first overnight? Understand how our creative process became more inclusive, collaborative, transparent, and ultimately more independent from our office space and location in our newest article >>>

Since the beginning of 2019, the new Management team, consisting of Managing Partners Andreas Diefenbach, Harald Lutz, Yifan Zhang, and Managing Director Joon-Mo Lee, runs the PHOENIX studios in Stuttgart, Munich, and Shanghai.

Everybody’s talking about DesignOp’s – but exactly what is it? This is the topic of one of the title leads of PAGE 05.2020. How PHOENIX has been developing this theme in collaboration with client Stiebel Eltron, was published in the May edition of PAGE magazine. “Consistent design must have top priority for C-level management,” says Claudia Tietge, Design Business Manager, PHOENIX. >>>

An interview with PHOENIX for the Red Dot Yearbook 2020. Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner and Matthias Oesterle, Design Business Manager answer questions about the Best of the Best for the hansgrohe Aquno Select M81 kitchen mixer.

What moves us – briefly written in our current Phoenix Magazine FIRST. NOW. NEXT. Come with us and discover the origins of Phoenix Design. Enjoy our success today together with us. And read our thoughts about the future. Download now!

Architecture magazine BAUMEISTER in conversation with Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner of PHOENIX. Phoenix Design has worked with large bathroom and plumbing companies for decades. Andreas Diefenbach, designer and managing partner of Phoenix Design, explains in an interview how to develop a brand language and what the upcoming trends in the bathroom and sanitary industries are. The interview was conducted by Alexander Russ and will be published by Baumeister in the May 2020 issue.

Phoenix Design won the highest award in competition twice together with its clients Hansgrohe and Trumpf, the Red Dot Award 2019: best of the best. The awarding ceremony took place at 8 July 2019 in the Aalto theatre in Essen/Germany including the hand-over of the title of honor "Red Dot: Design Team of the Year".

Eine Reportage von Thomas Lindemann für das Suplement Quarterly der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung Ausgabe Januar 2020. Im Interview mit Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner von PHOENIX.

hansgrohe presented their new shower family “Rainfinity”, designed by PHOENIX, at the ISH 2019 in Frankfurt/Germany. In combination with the “hansgrohe Home” App, also designed by PHOENIX and RainTunes the innovative, digital shower system for the bathroom.

Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner of PHOENIX, was keynote speaker at the Designblok in Prague as well as guest lecture in the Department of Architecture at the Technical University (CTU), Prague. Extracts from his lectures can be found here >>>

In the Suplement Raconteur of the newspaper "THE TIMES", an interview with Joon-Mo Lee and Andreas Diefenbach, both managing directors of PHOENIX> "It takes courage to seek inspiration where others do not look." >>>https://www.raconteur.net/sponsored/tacit-desires-unspoken-wishes. Article from THE TIMES "Tacit desires, unspoken wishes" as PDF download is available here.

German Design Award “Winner“ 2019 for SCALE: Phoenix Design receives together with its client LEDVANCE the coveted award of the German Design Council. The international jury honours the Visual Design Language for innovative lighting products designed by Phoenix Design with a "Winner" award.

Added brand value is created by design, even in digital experience worlds. That’s why PHOENIX offers professional guidance for doctoral candidates at the Diesel Medal Postgraduate Programme in the area of imitation suppression via IP, together with the German Design Council and the brand consultancy GMK Markenberatung.

The award of honour “Red Dot: Design Team of the Year” was awarded this year to Phoenix Design with its design teams in Stuttgart, Munich, and Shanghai. We are very happy about this special award! The Award Winning Ceremony and Exhibition Opening took place in Red Dot Designmuseum, Essen/Germany. 

Smart Living with logic, ehtics and magic. The Inflight magazine "Discover Germany" and Andreas Diefenbach, Managing Partner, PHOENIX, about the responsibility of designers, about the needs of everyday life. The magazine flies with airlines such as Lufthansa, British Airways, Eurowings, Austrian Airline and Swiss Air.

For a few months now, Andreas Diefenbach has been part of the Phoenix Design management team. In an interview with Wirtschaftsforum, he relates which changes his new role in the company entails, and what common denominators exist between Japanese calligraphy and his company.

Tom Schönherr hätte Dieter Rams‘ zehn Geboten guter Gestaltung noch ein elftes hinzugefügt: die Aufgabe zu Berühren. Anlässlich der Auszeichnung „Red Dot: Design Team of the Year 2018“ sprechen er und Andreas Haug, beide Gründer und Managing Partner von Phoenix Design, über ihre Geschichte, die Macht der Emotionen und Langlebigkeit im Produktdesign. Ein Auszug aus dem WirtschaftsWoche-Interview.

Andreas Diefenbach, Phoenix Design Managing Partner, in an interview on TRUMPF Track&Trace, one of this year’s winners of the Red Dot Design Award 2019: best of the best. He talks about the design, his philosophy, and general trends.

Wilkhahn shows its newest product designed by Phoenix Design to the public: the Conference Chair "Intra". At the ORGATEC in Cologne/Germany, the internationally leading trade show for modern working environments, the furniture manufacturer presented  his answer to increased dynamics and more agility in the office environment.

Yifan Zhang, General Manager China at Phoenix Design, heads the design studio Shanghai since its opening in 2017. With his appointment as Member of the Board, he is also part of the Phoenix Design Management from now on. Under his leadership, Phoenix Design has acquired important new clients and established itself further on the dynamic Chinese market.

Ecosystem. Buzzword of the year 2019. With no doubt. And it is a word that won´t go away easily. Because we will be living with it for years to come. And we have, for almost 4.5 billion years. Companies are pouring billions into “The Ecosystem”. But what is this Ecosystem everyone is talking about? A walk.

Tony Jankowski dealt with sustainable, autonomous building at the Phoenix Design Academy. From that experience, the product designer has deduced his concept for mobile robotic system for realising extremely lightweight and stable architectural structures according to prototypes found in nature. The bionic components: "Spider" and "Snail".

Tom Schönherr is co-author of the book on sustainable brand management and implementation published by Gabler. Tom Schönherr's point of view in his article "Erst Design macht Marken (be-)greifbar" ("Only Design Makes Brands Tangible and Understandable") is: "Brand design is a marathon, not a sprint." In his opinion, this is valid for both consumers and suppliers.

Philipp Emmert dealt with the “Smart Economy Service Experience” during air travel at the Phoenix Design Academy. From that experience, the industrial designer has deduced his concept for a holistic „Food Service Experience“ for passangers and stewards. The designed components comprise: Service Units (Meal Server, Refiller), Travel Bottle, self-heating Smart Packaging.

Phoenix Design has been active as a design and innovation consultancy for 31 years according to the philosophy of “Logic, Morals and Magic” – today, for tomorrow. It’s a unique philosophy, since these terms are rather unusual in a design context. So where does it come from?

"(...) What’s much more important: these designs are convincing in terms of longevity and verifiable business success. In this respect, Phoenix Design follows the tradition of Bauhaus and Ulm school – embodying the virtues of German design." Our philosophy describes how closely we are linked to this movement. On the occasion of its anniversary, Andreas Haug, Founder of Phoenix Design, will answer three questions about Bauhaus.

Kombiniere ein Möbelstück mit einem Adjektiv – und designe das „kompakte Sofa“. Werkgymnasiasten in Heidenheim haben zusammen mit Phoenix Designerin Steffi Moser ihre Lieblingskombi gestaltet. Mit der Workshop-Reihe "Entdecke Design" der Stiftung Deutsches Design Museum, wurden mit der gleichnamigen Bildungsinitiative seit 2014 schon über 16.000 Schüler in ganz Deutschland erreicht. Phoenix Design gehört zu mehr als 200 Designern, die das Projekt unterstützen.

In order to survive the digital revolution, German companies need a new instrument: Brand Design Thinking. A Polemic.

Following the motto of “30 Years of Phoenix Design – Logic, Moral, Magic”, this 30-year anniversary saw a spirited celebration at the legendary BIX jazz club in Stuttgart with more than 200 business partners and staff. Andreas Haug and Tom Schönherr took anecdotes as well as flops and hits from those days to the stage. The future was presented as well: new management board, new business areas, and strong growth in the Asian region.

From product design to innovation design partner: Phoenix Design adjusts its visual appearance. With the new Corporate Design, Phoenix Design not only parts with its red square, the logo is also shortened to one single concise word: PHOENIX.

Since October 2015, we have been present in Munich, with our most recent branch office creating the basis for further growth and looking after exciting new projects. See for yourself, take a look at the extraordinary interior design by Ippolito Fleitz and get to know our new interdisciplinary team.

Service-Robot Care-O-bot 4. The archetype of a service robot for tomorrow, developed and designed in close cooperation between Fraunhofer institute and Phoenix Design. Not only in the care sector does automation run its course. Routine chores in the private as in the public sector can be taken over by this android.