Scientific Instruments Win Prestigious European Product Design Award

The newly re-designed ‘xr’ series thermal desorption (TD) products from Markes International (Llantrisant, UK) have recently been awarded a European Product Design Award. These awards honour the best in the product design globally, which have the goal of advancing the appreciation of design worldwide.

The ‘xr’ series products were designed in collaboration with Sanders Design Associates Ltd (Cardiff, UK) and awarded Silver in the category of Industrial & Life Science Design.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Markes International has always been at the forefront of innovation for enhancing the measurement of trace-level volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds by gas chromatography. Markes’ range of thermal desorption products, led by the flagship UNITY-xr™ and TD100-xr™ thermal desorbers, set the benchmark in the field for performance, quality and reliability.

Julian Sanders, Managing Director, Sanders Design, said “Markes commissioned Sanders Design to reappraise the design of its thermal desorption instrument products in terms of construction, assembly, aesthetics, human factors and ergonomics, and in doing so establish a more expressive design language, one that more accurately conveyed the high level of technical competency of the products and Markes’ pre-eminent position in the market”. He went on to say “the design intent was to use contrasting colours and finishes, to create strong ‘drop shadows’ in key areas where large panels would naturally align. Floating and overlapping offset panels were also key design features, which help to create the products’ distinct character”.

The newly designed products were launched at the Analytica Trade Show in Germany in 2016 and have already resulted in significant commercial success for Markes.