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[Photo: Cubitts] Tom Broughton, the founder of the British eyewear brand Cubitts that has recently landed in the U.S., wants to make you a set of glasses that you’ll be able to wear your entire life. “They could outlive you,” he says. That’s a radical notion these days. Over the past three decades, as fast fashion has become the norm, the price of eyewear has come down alongside the price of clothes and shoes. Brands like Zenni and Warby Parker market their glasses as a fashion statement that is so affordable, you can change them up whenever you want. You could wear a different pair every day of the week. Broughton finds this approach to eyewear problematic for many reasons. For one thing, 250 metric tons of eyewear ends up in landfills every year, by some estimates. This is an environmental catastrophe since most eyewear today is made of acetate, a kind of plastic that will not biodegrade and contribute to the microplastics crisis. But more broadly, as a lover of glasses (or spectacles, as he calls them) he believes glasses have a way of expressing your identity and shaping how you appear to the world, so there is something beautiful about having a pair that lasts your life. With Cubitts, Broughton is trying to bring this philosophy to life. The company has a more laborious handmade process than its competitors, to create a more durable pair of glasses, and each frame comes with a lifetime of servicing and repair. Now the company is doubling down on this approach by allowing customers to create custom lenses that are personalized to the shape of their face, ensuring that they are perfectly suited to a lifetime of wear. Customers can now get a fitting for custom lenses in store, and the company is also developing an app that will collect customer measurements digitally so they can create custom frames online. The app will be released in the next few months. [Photo: Cubitts] A Spectacles Historian In his early teens, Broughton became obsessed with eyewear. More specifically, he fell in love with the rock star Morrissey’s glasses. In the 1980s, Morrissey, the lead singer of the iconic band The Smiths, wore large black frames that Broughton found irresistible. So Broughton got himself a pair of similar frames and wore them proudly to school, even when chunky frames weren’t yet popular. “I remember turning up to school in them when I was 14,” he says. “I felt like I was the coolest person ever, rightly or wrongly. Maybe people were laughing at me behind my back.” In his late teens and early twenties, Broughton became fascinated with the history of spectacles. He began collecting old pairs he found at antique shops, and learning as much as he could about them. This history made him long for the days when a pair of glasses was a valuable possession that people cherished throughout their life. [Photo: Cubitts] For much of human history, there was no way to correct poor eyesight, so many people went through life with blurry vision, unable to fully take in the world around them. Then, over the course of the last two millennia, inventors discovered that they could use crystal, polished quarts, or glass globes to magnify text. In the 1200s, Europeans developed the first eyeglasses made of quartz, framed in wood that you could hold up to your face to see things more clearly. Throughout the Renaissance, scientists continued developing spectacles to correct vision, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that they developed a pair with arms that would rest over the ears, making them more stable and hands-free. But until very recently, corrective glasses were very expensive. Even a century ago, when they were widespread, most people only had a single pair they would wear over the course of a lifetime. “Their spectacles were a precious, life-changing tool,” Broughton says. “But their spectacles also became associated with them and how they presented themselves to the world.” This is no longer the case. Eyewear is now very inexpensive to produce. Companies realized they could make spectacles out of plastic, which is a very cheap material. And since the 1980s, most of the world’s eyewear has been mass-produced in China, where labor is inexpensive. Now you can now get a pair for as little as $30. And while Broughton thinks it is wonderful that corrective eyewear has been democratized, so that everybody who needs it can now get it, it’s possible that the industry has swung too far, transforming glasses into something that is disposable. “We’ve stopped seeing spectacles as the incredible invention that they are,” he says. [Photo: Cubitts] Spectacles That Last a Lifetime Broughton hadn’t planned on becoming an entrepreneur. He studied behavioral economics and applied statistics, and eventually worked at Spotify. But in his spare time, he continued to pursue his passion for spectacles. He learned how to craft frames out of acetate and metal by hand, and began creating spectacles for his friends. “I would cycle around London with little measuring tools, knock on people’s doors and take their measurements,” he says. In 2012, while he was still at his day job, he launched Cubitts, creating custom lenses. The business quickly took off. Even though there are many competing eyewear brands on the market, people seemed to like Broughton’s approach that treated spectacles as something special. His customers took a long time to choose the perfect frames that they felt reflected who they were and how they wanted to appear to the world. Cubitts launched online and opened its first store in King’s Cross in London. The company also came to the United States, opening two stores in New York last year. The brand is known for its chunky, statement-making glasses, in the vein of the pair Morrissey wore, and they aren’t very expensive. The average Cubitts pair costs $200. Through its branding, the company emphasizes that even though the glasses are stylish, they’re not meant to be trendy. Throughout the store and the website, Cubitts makes it clear that the eyewear is meant to last a lifetime. The company makes each pair by hand using a lengthier process than its competitors, including using parts that are easier to replace if they break. For instance, it uses a premium hinge that connects the frame to the arm (that goes behind the ear) that makes it easier to fix. Cubitts has a policy of offering a lifetime of repairs, rehabs, and reglazing of their frames. When a prescription changes, they put in new lenses for free (many retailers offer this service, for a fee). [Photo: Cubitts] But Broughton believes that creating eyewear that lasts a lifetime isn’t just about durability. It’s also about helping customers find a pair that they love and that fits them perfectly. Cubitts offers each pair of glasses in small, medium, and large sizes to fit faces of different sizes. But the company is now investing in technology to create custom frames that are perfectly suited to the customers’ face. The company has developed a system that allows customers to come into the store to take measurements of their face, identifying everything from the size of their nose to the shape of their face to the distance to how far back their ears are. (The company is also working on an app that will allow people to take these measurements at home, so they can create custom frames virtually. This is likely to roll out in the next year or so.) Then, when the customer pick a style of lenses they like, Cubitts will custom-make them to suit their facial proportion. He’s found that this has been particularly appealing to Black and asian customers who sometimes struggle to find eyewear that fits the dimensions of their face, since most eyewear is designed around caucasian features. But all customers, regardless of ethnicity, like being able to find a pair that can be designed to look perfectly suited to their faces, so they are aesthetically pleasing and also don’t pinch the nose or the ears. Ultimately, Broughton hopes that this technology makes customers love their spectacles even more, and want to hold on to them for longer. And even though Broughton himself has access to an endless supply of different frames, and is sometimes tasked with testing out different models, he generally sticks to a round frame he has become attached to. “I’ve become rather attached to my spectacles,” he says. “They’re part of me now.”
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E-Commerce
In recent years, the FDA has approved dozens of gene and cell therapies that can potentially cure rare diseases like sickle cell disease and spinal muscular atrophy. But many patients still can’t access these treatments because insurers have refused to cover them. That reluctance is understandable, unfortunately. Widespread use of these multimillion-dollar therapies would bankrupt many health insurers. But the solution isn’t to deny lifesaving drugs to patients. Rather, it is to deploy creative financing solutions that deliver these therapies to sick Americans without collapsing the insurance system. The sickle cell dilemma Consider, for instance, the dilemma posed by sickle cell disease. About 100,000 Americans suffer from the condition, in which a genetic defect causes red blood cells to become crescent-shaped and impede circulation, leading to severe pain and shortened lifespans. Two therapies approved by the FDA show great promise, but are each priced above $2 million, reflecting the decades of research and development costs required to bring them to market and the relatively small patient population. Shockingly, $2 million may not be out of line, given the number of lives to be saved and the years of suffering to be averted, not to mention the improvements in workforce productivity for patients and their caregivers, and cost-avoidance of chronic disease management for sickle cell disease in the future. Curing the condition once and for all could actually save money in the long run, compared to managing the disease year after year and only slowing, not stopping, the patient’s decline. Even the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, which argues that many pharmaceuticals are wildly overpriced, has concluded that these treatments would “achieve common thresholds for cost-effectiveness” at a price exceeding $2 million. Yet few insurers can afford the up-front cost of these cutting-edge therapies. Commercial insurance companies would similarly struggle to afford the treatments for dozens or hundreds of patients in their risk pools state by state. Simply put, the health insurance system was designed to pay for statins and surgeries, not miracle cures with seven-figure price tags. The mortgage model Giving patients widespread access to these cures will require going outside the traditional insurance system, and facilitating partnerships between manufacturers, payers, and financial institutions, including banks and private equity. For example, right now, sickle cell chronic disease-and pain-management for just one patient can cost upwards of $50,000 per year. For Medicaid, which covers about 50% of U.S. sickle cell patients, these costs could add up to $2.5 billion annually. But if banks partnered with Medicaid, they could finance sickle cell gene therapies in bulk for a discount, say $1.7 million, then Medicaid would amortize the loan over several decades, the same as mortgaging a multimillion-dollar house. At a federally subsidized interest rate of 1%, Medicaid would pay $50,000 per patient per year over 40 years. In other words, the government would effectively pay the same annual price for gene therapies that cure patients up-front as it currently spends just to manage the condition in perpetuity. But after 40 years, Medicaid would have paid off the loan. Banks get a safe, government-backed investment; manufacturers are paid quickly and can scale production; and patients enjoy decades of good health. Outcomes-based contracts The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is embarking on a voluntary program between the makers of sickle cell gene therapies and state Medicaid offices to expand access, but it is limited to contracts that take the states off the hook if a treatment doesn’t work as intended. So-called outcomes-based contracts are rife with complexities and are unlikely to lead to widespread access for sickle cell patients. Similarly, employer-sponsored health plans’ coverage of gene therapies is erratic. If private equity partnered with these health plans at publicly traded companies, the up-front cost of paying for treatment in working-age populations could be amortized over time, predictably increasing the value of the company’s shares. Consider that healthier employees lead to gains in top-line productivity and fewer chronic conditions in a company’s risk pool that could potentially lower premiums. This means a greater return for private equity, one that makes their large up-front investment worthwhile. Everyone wins Traditional insurance simply wasn’t designed for a 21st-century world where we have the tools to completely cure diseases by altering patients’ genetic code. But with regulators’ permission, financial institutions could introduce tools that reduce the long-term costs of chronic conditions, improve public health, and generate predictable financial gains.
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E-Commerce
For the first time in more than 20 years, Amazons logo got a touch-up. In fact, all of its logos got a touch-up. The small but subtle changes are part of a company-wide brand system refinement, bringing together more than 50 Amazon sub-brands across categories like pharmacy, groceries, and on-demand streaming under a single brand umbrella. Typography was key to making it all work.A pair of bespoke fonts, Amazon Logo Sans and Ember Modern, tie Amazon products and services together with a unified brand voice that has flexibility for different contexts. This is a brand thats everywhere, from cardboard boxes to music to prescriptions, and needed to adapt to convey boldness and excitement in use cases like entertainment, but trustworthiness in its healthcare divisions.[Image: Amazon]Koto Studio, the creative agency that worked on the brand system and refresh, started the endeavor by thinking of Amazons master brand logo as a type specimen, not just a mark. (Though they did plump up its arrow to give it a deeper smile.) The team refined the letterforms in the logo, which eventually became the foundation for a font.The biggest challenge was the sheer scale, Koto New York executive creative director Arthur Foliard tells Fast Company of the Amazon brand refresh. Amazons brand had become visually fragmented. Every product or service seemed to have its own logo. It was a sea of arrows with no clear system or structure.Under the new brand system, the Amazon family of sub-brands, house brands, and core services, from Amazon Basics to Amazon Kids, now have a unified logo system set in the new proprietary Amazon Logo Sans.[Image: Amazon]Ember Modern is a new version of the typeface Amazon originally designed for Kindle screen. Koto updated it with characters for 366 languages and seven weights so it can be used globally in instances like high-impact headlines or for text-heavy, long-form reading. Its a typeface designed for versatility.They also updated the companys color palette to standardize its main brand color, Smile Orange; tweak its blue to a more saturated, digital-friendly shade; and give each sub-brand its own bright, expressive color scheme. Amazon Fresh, its grocery delivery business, uses shades of green to communicate freshness, while Amazon One Medical, its primary care provider, uses a turquoise green reminiscent of scrubs.Historically, Amazon teams moved fast, spinning up businesses and logos on the fly to meet customer demand, Foliard says. That agility was great, but it sometimes led to brand fragmentation. [Image: Amazon]Going forward, the agency left the company with an automated [amazon]:name command to generate future consistent logos instantly, plus a full logo architecture to define what needs a logo and what doesnt.With its new brand system and font book, Amazon is better positioned to express its brand and sub-brands across a growing number of categories. If Alexa is the audible voice of Amazon the brand, Amazon Logo Sans and Ember Modern are the brands voice in print.
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