HLB Has Moved!
After 27 years at our previous location, HLB has moved to the bourgeoning West Loop, Fulton Market neighborhood. Our beautifully renovated warehouse space provides new offices for our industrial design, engineering, and business operations functions as well as onsite mechanical and electrical engineering labs.
The move is another step in a series that HLB is taking to help ensure our services and operations are flexible and adaptive to evolving client needs.
Furthermore, the Fulton Market area provides great amenities including leading restaurants, art galleries and antique vendors. A growing entrepreneurial environment will continue to develop and expand the West Loop's business and entertainment viability. Being located only a few blocks from the Green and Pink 'L' lines make travelling to and from the HLB offices fast and easy. We are extremely pleased to be a part of one of Chicago's most thriving neighborhoods.
Please feel free to contact us to visit our new offices. We always welcome the opportunity to learn of new and exciting product ideas as well as share what we've learned today and over the past 50+ years.
Our mission is to create products that make life more enjoyable, more convenient, and more fulfilling for those who use them. We call this Meaningful Design™.
50 Coolest Products of the 21st Century
The iRobot Roomba made the list as one of the 50 Coolest Products of the 21st Century. This was part of Bloomberg Businessweek’s online article by Helen Walters. HLB was mentioned as the principal designing firm.
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Designing in green
A medical product designed for reuse can eliminate the need to stock disposables and reduce the amount of medical waste. A medical product designed for reuse can also require space, manpower, and time for the process of cleaning and sterilization, including the safe storage of the item between medical procedures.
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Design innovations require patents or do they?
Those involved in the design and development of tomorrow's medical devices must take into account the intellectual property associated with their innovations. This may or may not lead to pursuit of a patent.
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Gaming is serious for devices of the future
In today's interactive world, we text, download, and rely on GPS units for directions. And when we're not engaged in one of those activities, many of us are engaged in video game competitions with avatars (playful digital representations of human beings) throughout the world.
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Research Rocks the OR
“Using this hammer makes me feel like a rock star.” That's what an orthopedic surgeon exclaimed after using the suite of surgical tools developed by HLB Design for Smith & Nephew's Journey Bi-Cruciate Stabilized Knee System. Achieving the Smith & Nephew's ‘rock star moment’ began with a research process that took a holistic view of knee-replacement surgeries.
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HLB Design for Smith & Nephew Receives Gold IDEA Award from IDSA and BusinessWeek
HLB, long known as Herbst LaZar Bell, today was named a Gold winner in the 2008 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition. The product strategy, design, and development firm has offices in both Chicago and Boston, and has been a leader in the industry for over 45 years.
HLB Adds Four Key Directors to Its Award-Winning Team
HLB, the award-winning product strategy, design, and development firm, announced the addition of four key directors. HLB, long known as Herbst LaZar Bell, is headquartered in Chicago and has an office in Boston (www.hlb.com).
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Lehman Added to HLB Award Winning Design Team
HLB, long know as Herbst LaZar Bell, the award-wining product design consulting firm, announced the hiring of Don Lehman for its design team. He will be based out of the firm’s Chicago headquarters. HLB also has an office in Boston.
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Studying how we use gadgets makes for better designs
Possibly no one knows more about how and why we use gadgets than the folks who design them. Studying the behaviors and attitudes of potential users before designing a product is often the best practice.
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Takahashi: Bar set higher for industrial design
Electronic products with cool designs are everywhere these days. Once largely the domain of Apple Computer, industrial design has filtered into every part of our lives…. Good design is a quick way to a competitive advantage these days.
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HLB's Phil Corse to Participate in China Panel Discussion
Phil Corse, Senior Vice President of Consulting Services at HLB, has been asked to participate as a panelist for a Kellogg panel discussion on conducting business in China. Phil will moderate MARKETING IN CHINA: CONNECTING WITH 1.3 BILLION CONSUMERS. The event will take place at the James L. Allen Center is located on the western shores of Lake Michigan at Northwestern University's Evanston campus.
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What is good design? More importantly, what is good design practice?
New Form + Function Club welcomes design expert Walter Herbst
Key to good practice is understanding what customers really need, not just what they say they need. By Adrienne Murrill
These were the questions that Kellogg School students discussed with award-winning designer Walter Herbst on Feb. 14. Herbst addressed the Kellogg community at the kick-off event for Form + Function, the new Kellogg design and innovation strategy club. His lecture took place in the Donald P. Jacobs Center.
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Charter One Bank - HLB's Phil Corse to Participate in China Panel Discussion
Phil Corse, Senior Vice President of Consulting Services at HLB, has been asked to participate as a panelist for a Charter One Bank private forum and panel discussion on conducting business in China.
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