Author: Jon Plummer

Tinkerer, putterer, maker, and Mr. Fix-It currently on a “use what you have” kick. Husband and father, leader and mentor of designers, product design and emotional intelligence enthusiast.

MiniMed next-gen pump interface

Jon Plummer

Medtronic engaged IDEO to help design a next-generation pump to succeed the MiniMed 522, which combined insulin delivery with wireless continuous glucose measurement. IDEO proposed a more capable LCD screen and more buttons, among other things. Before the project was shelved in favor of a patch-pump concept I took over interaction design from IDEO.

My role: ideation, workflows, on-screen and physical mockups, usability testing, demonstrating enhanced usability to executives and the firmware and pump hardware teams

Lessons learned: it’s easy to be a poor client and fail to get your money’s worth from even the most capable firm. Industrial design and interaction design should be done at the same time so they can inform each other; no team makes a pure vessel for the other to fill.

Mann Consulting website (2001)

Jon Plummer

While working on the identity and without any experience marketing a business, I proposed and was given the greenlight to redesign the Mann Consulting website. A relatively clean and sparse site was the result, with a handful of randomly selected “single-sell” main graphics, a proto-blog, and a small number of tightly-focused pages, all aimed at explaining the benefit and encouraging a phone call.

The winning design and identity:

My role: pitch, concepts, visual design, HTML and graphics production

Some other possibilities, with a provisional identity:

Mann Consulting identity (2001)

Jon Plummer

Identity package for Mann Consulting, a small IT consultancy in San Francisco focused on advertising and graphic design firms. Many venues were explored, but I kept coming back to the cube. Nearly two decades on they are still quite happy with it.

My role: ideation and development of the mark and logotype, application to business cards, tee and polo shirts, letterhead, brochures, and the website, production of print-ready artwork, outsourcing of offset printing, screen printing, and embroidery

Exploratory work: