Award Winning • Cross-functional Collaboration • Innovation
Truliant® Knee System
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & BRANDING
The Truliant® Knee represented a significant milestone for Exactech — it was the company's first branded physical product. A key part of that process was collaborating closely with an industrial designer to thoughtfully infuse Exactech's brand into the physical product itself, ensuring the identity carried through beyond marketing materials and into the object you could hold in your hands.
The Truliant® Knee was recognized with the 2018 Medical Design Excellence Award, one of the most respected honors in the medical device industry.
Brand-Integrated Product Research
One of the first things I wanted to figure out was how to make the brand feel like a natural part of the product — not just something applied to the outside of it. To get there, I brought together folks from engineering and marketing to talk through what that could look like and gather perspectives from across the company. I also put together a Pinterest board to start collecting real-world examples of brands that had done this well — a go-to reference point that helped shape the creative direction from the very beginning.
Development of Industrial Design Document
From there, the industrial designer and I worked together to develop a comprehensive industrial design document — a resource built specifically for the product engineers designing the Truliant® Knee system instrumentation. More than just a style guide, it captured the why behind every design decision, giving the engineering team the context and reasoning they needed to carry the brand vision through into the physical product with intention and consistency.
Product Brochure
A seven-color brochure designed to be as intentional as the product itself. Every print technique — embossing, foil, and gloss spot varnish — was chosen to mirror the design language of the instruments. Blue foil reflected the functional blue highlights found on surgical-critical features. Embossing recreated the waffle texture of the instrument grips. Gloss varnish distinguished the metal components, while matte black areas echoed the holding locations on the physical product.
The result was a piece you could both read and feel— and one that earned Best of Show from the Gainesville Ad Federation.
Launch Video
The Truliant® Knee System launched at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. I developed a promotional video the launch video to accompany the debut, creating a moment of excitement and energy around the product as surgeons encountered it for the first time.