Dear Madam, Dear Sir,

We welcome you to our medical world and hope to have the honor of welcoming you to our practice in Geneva.

Before my encounter with the medical world, I dedicated my life to studying the Creative Arts, the only solutions to the “challenges” posed by ” Design ” and the Graphic Arts. This universe at the border between Art and the world ” corporate” has been the main part of my career.

Then, my encounter with medicine led me to look at this new universe in a naturally artistic way. I observed the shaping of the human body by doctors, whom I quickly called the ” Designers of the smile and the face” or Smile Designer.

Their work is very close to the quests of my own profession of ” Graphic Designer “.  We have recognized together, in our two worlds, the same Golden Number, the same search for Symmetry, Perspective or Harmony of forms and colors. All these universal parameters are common to both professions and probably to all natural divine creations that Man tries to copy.

” Smile Designer & Dentophobia   was to be born from this union between design and dentistry. Its DNA naturally brings together Art, Science and Medicine in a team of passionate people .

Would a new paradigm of this century be the passage from the concept of “Dental Art” to that of “Smile Design” ?

According to the dictionary, “dentistry” is the “medical and surgical specialty covering the study of the dental organ, the maxilla and the adjoining tissues”. 

Of course, this definition cannot be questioned in any way. It designates the core of the profession of dentist, that is to say the practice of “the art of dentistry”.

However, at the beginning of the 21st century, the profession of “dentist” is now interfaced with an infinite number of other professions, which scientific and technological advances constantly impose as essential partners. New indispensable notions are to be acquired, to be mastered imperatively and permanently, in order to update the professional skills.

Whether they are medical (cosmetic doctors, plastic surgeons, ENT surgeons, maxillofacial surgeons, anesthesiologists, radiologists, oncologists, infectious diseases specialists, diabetologists, gynecologists, etc.), paramedical (psychologists, osteopaths, etc.) or technical (dental prosthesists, computer specialists, fashion designers, etc.), all of these professionals are constantly interacting in the world of dentistry, in line with the constant medical and technical developments, as well as societal changes in terms of fashion, quality of life, etc.), all of these players are already constantly interacting in the world of dentistry, at the pace of perpetual medical and technical developments, but also in terms of fashion, quality of life, and administrative and social requirements.

Consequently, in light of these new parameters to be included in the odontological equation, would we not need, in order to redefine these fine professions, to invent a neologism that encompasses classical odontology while being more adaptable and in phase with our world in hyper technological and social evolution?

The expression “Smile Design” is internationally recognized.

It is necessary to define what the word “Design” is: It has no equivalent in French and is not to be taken in the restrictive terms of “drawing” or “design” whose duality recalls that of “matter” versus “spirit” of the very rational Mr. Descartes.

The word “Design”, in English, has retained these two notions since it means both “to draw” and “to conceive”, according to a plan, an intention, a drawing, as well as a design, or why not, a human anatomy, sublimated by its virtual representation, in three dimensions (3D) thanks to Digital Medical Imaging, as well as an ideally reconstructed human physiology.

The “Design” is thus the creation of a project in order to realize an object. As well as the creation of a therapy for the realization of a medical protocol. Like a beautiful dental prosthesis in physiological occlusion will give back his smile, his face and even his mood to a person whose life project is at the crossroads of Art, Technique and Society.

The primary goal of “Design” is to invent, improve or facilitate the use of an element, including the elements constituting the Human Being, such as his body and his mood, having to interact with his environment, whether material or virtual, such as the “others” or the “social codes” on which the human depends.

Another role of “Design” is to respond to “needs”, to solve “problems” by proposing innovative solutions and to explore all possibilities to improve the quality of Life of Human Beings.

The multidisciplinarity is in the heart of the work of “Designer“, whose culture feeds as well on Arts, Techniques, Humanities or Natural Sciences and quite simply of the observation of its fellow men.

However, all these roles correspond surprisingly well with the modernity of the profession of aesthetic doctor and dentist, which evolves with the advances of Science and Technology.

All enlightened professionals, at all times, have felt the imperative need to evolve their profession. 

Dentistry (in the strict sense) must evolve towards a broader concept that tends towards those of other medical and scientific professions, creating interfaces, bridges, and even inclusions of their competences and fields of activity. As at the time, when the traditional “Biophysical” and “Biochemical” Sciences were all joined at the essential level of “Molecular Biology”, their lowest common denominator.

All this seems to be common sense, since the “lowest common denominator” of medicine and dentistry is the “Body”, seat of the “Human Spirit”, even of the Soul. The body and the mind should not be made dual but rather considered as inseparable as Ying and Yang.

Isn’t the “dental organ”, until now the main object of all odontological research, overtaken in the hierarchy of scientific attention by oral surgery and the reconstruction of “the maxillae and the adjacent tissues”? These become the major subjects of modern research and techniques.

The “Smile Designer” will have to do more than “treat the teeth” but rather “make people smile”, by all technical means.

Because the “smile” is to be put on the same level of importance as the “word”. Now, language is one of those qualities that have allowed Man to rise to the top of the evolutionary ladder.

Any alteration of this area refers to the alteration of the communication with others, as well as to the “disfigurement” and therefore to the “de-socialization”, which leads to isolation, to end up in depression and social death.

This situation is all the more serious in our modern societies, where the dogma of “a healthy mind in a healthy body” dominates. If one does not submit to it, a certain media violence comes to impose this intellectual imperialism, in the professional relations of force, but just as much in the intimate relations. Because the mouth is the only area of the body invested with eroticism and sexuality that it is allowed to show ostensibly to others and, at all ages from the child to the elderly.

The “Smile Designer” is looking for your lost smile and well-being.

Steve Job, President and founder of   Apple said about “Design”: 

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with linear solutions without a broad perpspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have”.

(Many people in our industry have not had very diverse experiences. So that they do not have enough reference points to connect – in the human problems -. So they only find linear solutions without any deep perspective of the problem. The broader the understanding of the human experience, the better the design.)

Certainties are the laziness of the Spirit : This is why the profession of “Smile Designer”, like all the others, which are closely or remotely related to the Arts, Sciences, Technologies and Techniques, must constantly adapt to new concepts, in hypermovement to the rhythms of of modern technologies, while not forgetting that the main subject of this profession is “Man”.

It is for that that the study of “human beings”, their origins, their distinct environment, their cultures and their societies, are disciplines as important as knowing how to handle science and its new techniques purely odontological.

The “Smile designer” must, probably, be defined by the four fundamentals that govern his daily practice:

The Art : It is to say the capacity, thanks to the artistic sense and the taste, to create the “beautiful” ex-nihilo or from a chaos.

The Science : That is to say, in this case, the need to have the fundamental medical notions essential to the understanding of the whole of the knowledge in perpetual expansion and mutation.

The Technology :   It is to say to possess (in the literal sense) or to create the most modern technological tool which is going to allow the Art and the Science to be concretely realized in the pursued objective.

The Technique : That is to say, to train oneself to master the “Technology” through the protocols that one learns and unlearns in order to reinvent them unceasingly, in a race against oneself, but also against ignorance and preconceived ideas, which never ends.

At this high level, the “Smile design” must be the new paradigm that redefines the profession of dentistry!

Without breaking with the traditional “Dental Art” since the “Smile design”, on the contrary, sublimates it in its extreme modernity to position it towards this XXI century which is technological, it is certain, but will have to remain human, let us hope.

Like a sculptor or an architect, who thanks to his pencil, his brush or his chisel will bring out of the raw material a work that will be the fruit of his imagination, nourished by his culture, his talent, his technique and the performance of his tools, the The “Smile designer” will have to choose, from his technological palette, which is not exhaustive since it is constantly being renewed, the instruments he needs to reconstruct the harmony of a smile and a face that time and the hazards of life have made unsightly and/or dysfunctional.

All people must be able to return to their normal social and emotional life .