From product design to brand renewal, Salvia Medical GmbH has reinvented itself with the support of the WILDDESIGN team. And this was done in a very short time (currently 30 months) and in so many individual sub-projects that one simply has to speak of a holistic strategic approach. The greatly rejuvenated and strengthened company is now looking to the future with confidence - and in an extremely competitive medical market, that of clinical ventilators.

In the past, Salvia was content to market its outstanding technology and its own designs under a different name - e.g. that of the market leader - but today it proudly flies the flag with its own label in a modern style, innovative technology and a Facebook page that is "liked" thousands of times every day.

How did this paradigm shift come about?

"If you ask me," says Head of Design Markus Wild, "it all started with the appointment of a new and visionary Managing Director at Salvia Medical, Christian Hartmann."

Salvia initially worked with us to redesign existing products in their "clinical ventilators" product line. Shortly after we started, Hartmann joined the team and this "small redesign approach" quickly turned into a holistic design strategy. Not only was the flagship elisa 800 completely redesigned, but 10 other products followed. Salvia had laid the foundations for this in the previous decades, when functionality and product quality were the only factors that could be used to distinguish the company.

Salvia's culture - a holistic approach

Hartmann, the new CEO, brought a load of fresh ideas to the team. The most important of these was certainly the decision to launch products on the market under the company's own label. Not an easy undertaking when you haven't been particularly conspicuous on the market so far, but with more than 50 years of experience, you're not exactly a newcomer to the industry either.

And if you start something so daring, you have to do it right - otherwise you might as well leave it alone. In addition to this determination, it was also a matter of motivating the experienced engineers and proven experts in the 40-strong Salvia team towards a new goal. To make the products not only top-notch in technical terms, but also in terms of design, usability and marketing. Basically, he wanted to make Salvia itself more "user-friendly" as a company.

Design more than just a yardstick - design as a link

The design factor was not just a measure of success: this year, the new elisa 800 won both of the world's most important design trophies, the red dot design award and the IF design award for outstanding product design.(Read also the second article on the design of the elisa 800 VIT) More importantly, the design factor and our design team became the link between the old and new functions of the Salvia brand. With the help of sometimes very simple sketches, sometimes complex illustrations, we drew an image that was visible to everyone involved. An image that created identity and could be understood by everyone - from the fitters and service technicians right up to the executive floor.

"What must a good ventilator be able to do?"

It was particularly important to get the end user and medical experts on board. As part of our design development, users were regularly surveyed and were thus able to provide the engineering team with valuable information on how to improve usability. Just one of many factors, but a decisive one.

The more you focus on a few factors, the more important it becomes to continue to take the other factors into account. Our self-developed methodology, the "24 design factors", also helped us at Salvia. In order to get a complete picture of the task with all the essential aspects, the 24 design factors give us clues to analyze quickly and comprehensively and to get the right overall understanding. In this way, we ensure that our ideas are not just short-term solutions to problems, but offer long-term development paths that create added value for the market.

(here -> you can find the complete collection of the 24 design factors with a focus on product, brand and project management) We regularly use this design strategy tool for the further development of the Salvia brand.

Branding as a strategic decision

Why is Salvia green now? When you look back at the newly established Salvia brand at the end of the development process, you can't believe how much power the first redesigned brand elements, the logo and the new color green had. While Hartmann had perhaps been somewhat timid with his plans up to that point, this radically different understanding of design turned him into an advocate of a consistent design strategy in which he was always prepared to go into the smallest details.

Let's take the new slogan "breathing like nature". The idea behind this is to make artificial respiration, which is very technical in itself, as gentle as possible and has generated a number of innovations. Small details that are now among the innovations in the industry, such as tomography of the lungs (VIT) integrated into ventilation. It is now possible to see at a glance and in real time whether the patient's lungs are being properly ventilated or not and to select the correct, adapted form of therapy using the same device. This will almost certainly save lives in the future.

Or take the new Salvia Android and iPhone app "Mode Finder". While analyzing the market, it became obvious that there is a real confusion of terms in ventilation because each provider uses its own technical and brand terminology. The Mode Finder is now a friend to nursing and medical staff, as it translates the different terms and makes it easier to understand.

Salvia has reinvented itself in many aspects and has become an extremely progressive brand whose functions and design will serve as benchmarks for the market in the future. What's more, Salvia has quickly become a byword for innovation in the industry and even outside the narrow medical cluster, the flagship elisa 800 VIT is now known "like a colorful dog", as elisa has recently been allowed to play a regular role in the ARD daily soap "in aller Freundschaft".

-> Case study SALVIA product design and brand development