Aliph Welcomes Award-Winning Product Designer Yves Behar to Executive Team; Cements Commitment to Industry Leading Design
December 20, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, CA - December 20, 2007 - Asserting its commitment to superior audio communications through the combination of innovative technology and design, Aliph, the leader in mobile audio technologies and products, today announced that Yves Behar will join the company as vice president and creative director.
Mr. Behar will lead Aliph's creative strategy, ranging from industrial design of the products to branding and communications. Mr. Behar is the founder of the San Francisco-based design studio fuseproject, which he will continue to lead in conjunction with his new position at Aliph.
"Yves has played a pivotal role in Aliph's innovation since we started building our own products," said Hosain Rahman, Aliph CEO and co-founder. "We believe that the design exercise at every level of the new product development process is what allows great technology to be translated into complete product experiences for consumers. Yves instinctively understands this connection, designing products that are acclaimed for their visual appeal, comfort, and ease-of-use."
As part of fuseproject, Mr. Behar has worked closely with Aliph since 2003, designing its full line of Jawbone headsets. Most recently, Mr. Behar collaborated with Aliph to design the newest addition to the Jawbone family: Jawbone with Bluetooth and Noise Shield, which was introduced today (see press release, "Cingular Wireless and Aliph Introduce the Jawbone Bluetooth Headset featuring Noise Shield Technology").
The Jawbone Bluetooth headset has already been awarded an International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award and an iF Product Design Award. Previous generations of the Jawbone headset have been honored with the 2005 CES Innovations Award, the BusinessWeek Industrial Design Excellence Award, and a DEMOgod™ award from the DEMO industry conference group in 2004.
"My design strategy involves focusing on the emotional experience of the user," explained Mr. Behar. "Our ability to communicate is what makes us human, which is why it is so exciting to be working with Aliph to improve the way people talk to each other."
At fuseproject, Mr. Behar's clients have included Herman Miller, MINI, Nike, Toshiba, Sony, Birkenstock, Target, OLPC, Swarovski, Magis and Coca Cola. Additionally, Mr. Behar's work was featured in two solo shows in 2004 – one at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which included the Jawbone headset, and another at the Musee de design et d'arts appliques contemporains in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is also a recipient of numerous design awards, including the prestigious National Design Award for industrial design, awarded by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum.
Mr. Behar was design leader at frogdesign and Lunar design before founding fuseproject. He was recently appointed Chair of the Industrial Design Department at CCA. He is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design.
About Aliph
Aliph was founded in 1999 by Alex Asseily and Hosain Rahman, two young engineering entrepreneurs who met as Stanford undergrads. The pair shared a belief that voice would be the dominant interface for mobile devices and that creating a noise-free environment was critical to delivering an improved mobile communications experience. Aliph is committed to ensuring that mobile users have the best possible experience anywhere, anytime. Since 2002, Aliph's technology has been optimized for DARPA to maximize communications clarity in the most hostile conditions. Aliph's first consumer product, the Jawbone headset, debuted in 2004 to critical acclaim for its marriage of performance, design and comfort. Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Aliph is funded by private investors and the Mayfield fund. For more information about Jawbone, please go to www.jawbone.com.