In 2021, DIAC published its Design Impacts Framework to demonstrate how positive design interventions in Placemaking can be assessed and measured. In the second phase of this research, DIAC is applying the Framework to projects in other disciplines.
Lumatone – The Isomorphic Keyboard
In 1996, Siemen Terpstra had a new design for an old idea, flushed out with just a cardboard mock-up –hexagonal keys allowing for maximum playability and an isomorphic layout to enable new ways for musicians to think about chords, scales, and the intervals between notes. The design came to life when Toronto-based designer Dylan Horvath fell in love with the idea and helped to commercialize the vision to create a keyboard that was as expressive as a piano, with a hexagonal key pattern.
The functionality of Lumatone, with its 280 hexagonally arranged, rising, colour-changing LED keys allows artists to easily program in the simplest way and define the instruments tuning. Microtonalists and polychromatic composers can visualize their composition and describe finally being able to “scratch an itch they have had for decades” now that they can play “the notes between the notes” beyond the traditional 12-notes-per-octave.
Lumatone understands the environment of studio owners, composers and people who think about music differently. The Lumatone brand encourages users to customize the keyboard around their own unique vision of music and make the device personal. Users can program the colours of the keys, creating their own visual representation of pitch. The company continues to work with composers and musicians to refine the product and increase usability in each model it launches, including the addition of pitch and mod wheels, and polyphonic aftertouch capability.
Music improves mental health and wellbeing and quality of life, and Lumatone allows musicians to express their creativity in news ways, entering the next zeitgeist of new music composition.
After a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that spanned from 2013 – 2020, the Lumatone was officially unveiled at the 2020 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California, where it drew plenty of press and admirers. A soft launch of the commercial version of Lumatone resulted in multiple production batches that quickly sold out, and sales are growing every month. This passion project, spanning over two decades, is an inspiring example of user engagement and understanding.
