Help Remedies is empowering people to make their own health decisions by making medicine simpler and friendlier. Richard Fine, co-founder of Help Remedies, talked about the company background, creative process and future business endeavors at the AIGA/NY Design Thinking: Case Studies with Richard Fine from Help Remedies. The sold-out presentation was held at the Johnson & Johnson Experience Lab on September 15, 2010.

Richard Fine and his business partner Nathan Frank established Help Remedies in 2008. For Richard Fine, Help Remedies was his response to the complexity of the American healthcare system, “medicine has gotten way too complicated. We’ve started focusing on new stuff with very little minimal benefits, as opposed to the value of things that are simple and pure,” he said.

In researching the existing medicine in the over the counter healthcare space, Richard Fine was alarmed by the intimidating, unfriendly and complicated experience.

As an example, he showed a cold medicine that contains ingredients for fevers, headaches, sore throat, nasal congestion, cough suppressant, antihistamine, cough, cold, etc., “what this is doing is diffusing people’s sense of what’s important and what’s valuable to us,” he said.

Next, he recalled starting the process by calling medicine manufacturers to produce stripped down acetaminophen, “I didn’t want any coating, any dies, no fillers, just simple, straight version. And most people laughed at me.” Nevertheless, one manufacturer agreed to produce the medicine, and the design process started.

The design process, whether it was package design, industrial design, identity, retail space, etc., was governed by a single brief: medicine needs to be simpler and friendlier. Working with a number of different design firms, Richard Fine showed several prototypes: plastic, tin, half plastic/half tin, all of which failed to capture the essence of the brand.

The final design was stripped away of all the complexity to create simple packaging of soft molded paper pulp and 100% recycled materials.

The response from the design community was overwhelming, “as soon as we launched it, we got a ton of press,” said Richard Fine. Design stores, hotels, museums, magazines and blogs instantly picked up Help Remedies.

At the end of the presentation, Richard Fine discussed where Help Remedies are currently sold and distributed. He briefly mentioned future business developments, which include working on larger products and launching with major national retailers in December 2010. Help Remedies returns 5% of all profits to charities that help people without healthcare.

Audience Q&A concluded the presentation.

For more information, visit

Help Remedies

http://helpineedhelp.com/

To view event details, visit

AIGA/NY Design Thinking: Case Studies with Richard Fine from Help Remedies

http://2006.aigany.org/events/details/10J1/

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