For HARMAN, superlative design is as important as pure sound in creating truly immersive user experiences. Design is never an afterthought—it is an essential part of what distinguishes HARMAN’s products from all others. It guides the entire development process, from concept to launch. Design at HARMAN is a commitment, a passion, an obsession.
This devotion to design is what inspired the creation of Huemen, HARMAN’s in-house design agency. Huemen brings together over 250 of the world’s best and brightest researchers, designers, and free thinkers spread across six studios, where they create ever more intuitive, ever more immersive, ever more meaningful human experiences.
Over its 9-year history, Huemen has steadily built a global reputation for exceptional talent and unmatched expertise, winning widespread admiration and 449 awards for 336 products across brands like JBL, Harman Kardon, Mark Levinson, and Infinity. Recognition comes from well-respected industry names as iF International Forum Design, CES, Red Dot, EISA, and Fast Company, making HARMAN the #1 award winner in the consumer audio category.
In the past year alone, Huemen received an astounding 23 iF Design Awards, 20 CES Innovation Awards (including “Best of Innovation”), and 44 Red Dot Awards (including the highly coveted “Best of the Best” award).
What makes the Huemen team so extraordinary? How do they maintain such a phenomenal level of excellence? The answer lies in its name: a human-centric approach guides everything that Huemen’s people do. Keeping their focus firmly fixed on the user, day in and day out they create products that seamlessly combine intelligent form and intuitive function, technical prowess and aesthetic appeal.
The fact that user-centricity is essential to HARMAN’s entire philosophy makes this human-oriented approach to design all the more legitimate and all the more powerful. Just as HARMAN prides itself on offering products and solutions that are perfectly in tune with users’ evolving needs, so Huemen makes sure that every product begins with the user: who they are, what they need, what they think and feel, what their own individual “world” is like … and how a Huemen-designed product can fit into and even improve that world.
As part of HARMAN, Huemen also benefits from a profound knowledge of the multiple brands and brand identities within the group, making it better able to serve HARMAN’s needs than an external agency would. Having worked hand-in-hand with HARMAN to define each brand and develop its guidelines, Huemen understands the design “language” of each one and is uniquely able to elaborate on that language, creating new products that fit seamlessly into existing ranges while offering users new and improved experiences.
“Good design is inherently meaningful. It speaks directly to the user, creating an emotional connection. Every product we develop is about making that connection, about giving users much more than a beautiful product, we deliver an experience that touches them in a unique way that makes their lives a little bit better.”
--Christian Schluender, Vice President & GM, Global Design