Jonathan Ive is the soul of Apple's industrial design. He has been the chief designer since the iPod era. After experiencing iMac and iPad, he reached the pinnacle of his life in the iPhone era and is known as the smartest designer in the world. The secret weapon that competing companies wanted most. For a long time, he was one of the most powerful industrial designers in the world.
If it weren't for Apple's success, Li Mu might not even be able to remember the designer's name, so he didn't know how much achievements Arya had made in the field of industrial design in his previous life. But just from her one night Judging from the sketches he drew at random, Li Mu felt that this woman's achievements would not be bad.
What Li Mu didn't know was that Arya and Jonathan were alumni of the same school. Both graduated from the School of Design at Northumbria University. In the future time and space, Arya joined Apple in 2003 and became Jonathan's most popular employee. A powerful assistant.
After Aaliya showed several design sketches to Li Mu, she asked him: "Mr. Li, I wonder which of these sketches is closer to what you want?"
Li Mu thought for a while and said, "I think the last one I'm still painting is closer."
"Really?" Arya hurriedly turned to the last page. The sketch above was just a simple line. At this time, Li Mu pointed to the upper and lower cross-section sketches she drew and said, "But I hope that the two sides can be closed here. , becomes an oblate shape.”
Arya nodded, quickly erased the cross-section sketch she had made with an eraser, and then drew an oblate circle again.
Li Mu was basically satisfied and said to her, "It would be nice if the design could be thinner and lighter."
Arya said: "It's just a sketch now. You can draw any sketch, but I still have to refer to the hardware configuration, including what kind of screen, what kind of buttons, what kind of memory you plan to use, and the most important thing , it depends on what kind of battery you want to use. If it is a lithium battery, the design is more flexible. If it is an ordinary AA battery or a AAA battery, the design is more limited because the thickness of the battery is relatively small. Big, so…”
Only then did Li Mu think that there would be no problem with the MP3 using a design similar to the iPod-nano4, but the most important thing was the hardware and process issues. If you want to use the flat shape of the nano4, the biggest problem is the battery. If you don't use lithium batteries, then even if you use the smallest The thickness of AAA, which is AA battery, will also be greatly affected.
If lithium batteries are used, the thickness problem can be solved very well, but the cost will naturally be much higher. It is now 2002, and the cost of lithium batteries can be said to be astonishingly high. A mobile phone battery can easily cost several hundred yuan. If you give a MP3 with lithium battery, the cost will exceed the user's affordability.
At present, the purchasing power of domestic users is indeed at a relatively weak stage. Li Mu must consider the issue of cost. Otherwise, if he really comes up with an MP3 player that costs two to three thousand yuan like an IPOD, it will completely disrupt his plan.
This also made Li Mu realize the one-sidedness of a layman's consideration of things. He had not thought of such an important matter in advance as the battery.
Li Mu smacked his lips and asked Arya: "If ordinary batteries are used, do you have any good design suggestions?"
Arya said: "Most MP3 players are powered by ordinary dry batteries. The only disadvantage is that the overall design must be based on the battery. However, if a single AAA battery is used, the design is more controllable. I It is recommended to use this power supply method. In this case, using the triangular cross-section design just now, I can widen the front as much as possible, reduce the thickness, adopt an isosceles triangle design, and make the angle of the vertex as large as possible. This makes it thinner and lighter, and can highlight the front of the player more."
Li Mu nodded and said, "Just try changing it."
Arya immediately turned to a new page and started drawing lines with a pencil in hand.
The front of the fuselage was quickly outlined, and then Arya began to outline the cross section. She first drew an isosceles triangle with a large vertex.
Li Mu put forward his own suggestion: "Can the three corners of the cross section be processed into an arc design? That would look more natural."
Arya tapped the pencil in her hand lightly on the sketchbook, her eyes lit up: "What an excellent suggestion!"
Having said that, Arya began to process the edges and corners based on the isosceles triangle, making the edges and corners more smooth and natural. Similar to the four-arc design of the iPhone 6, the cross-section was processed into a triangular arc. In this way, the overall appearance The design sense has also been improved a bit.
The design of the battery compartment is appropriately arranged in the top corner of an equilateral triangle. The protruding arc edges can just fit the battery inside, and the narrowing on both sides can give people the illusion of being thinner overall.
Unconsciously, nearly an hour passed. More and more lines were drawn by Arya's pen tip, gradually covering the blank paper. A design sketch like a sketch appeared in front of Li Mu, and Li Mu was asked to do it. Marvel.
The overall functional layout of this product is similar to that of the iPod-nano, but the difference is that Arya has added a lot of her own design elements. Although it is thicker in the middle than the nano due to the battery compartment, the overall It still looks very beautiful, much better than any MP3 player of this era.
The design of the back cover of the battery compartment is relatively traditional. It is a battery cover not much larger than the AA battery. At the bottom of the back of the entire player, there is a recessed card slot for fixing the battery cover.
Li Mu was a little dissatisfied with this design. He asked Arya: "Can the entire back be designed as a removable battery cover?"
Arya asked in surprise: "The whole back is one piece? Wouldn't it be too troublesome to disassemble?"
Li Mu smiled and said: "If it is to be disassembled as a whole, this buckle method will be different. Hidden buckles must be used. That is to say, the back cover must be designed in a push-pull mode. Push the buckle to disassemble the cover. When you put it on, no gaps or marks can be seen on the entire rear.”
This design is still very novel now, but in the future, almost all electronic product remote controls will use this hidden buckle method. The biggest advantage of this method is that it is beautiful and integrated, and will not look like traditional The battery cover is so awkward.
Although Arya had never seen this method before, after listening to Li Mu's general introduction, she immediately understood what Li Mu wanted. In more than ten minutes, she drew an overall sketch of the back cover. , looks and feels very good.
This also made Arya look at Li Mu with admiration. Although he had not studied design, his inspiration for design seemed to exceed that of many people. Even he seemed to be very avant-garde.
Regarding the design of the earphones, Li Mu also requested that it be as simple as possible while ensuring the sense of design. Aaliya changed the design draft several times under Li Mu's instruction, and finally came up with a design similar to iPhone earphones. Li Mu also I am very satisfied with this version. I can’t help it. Apple’s industrial design was recognized and affirmed by the whole world in the previous life. They are the only industry representatives that Li Mu can think of.
After the overall design sketch was finalized, Arya herself couldn't put it down with the final design effect. She sincerely said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, in fact, most of this player is your idea. The cost we set before, I think it’s more appropriate to reduce it by half.”
Li Mu said sternly: "These are two different things. Even if part of it is my idea, you are still helping me perfect it. There is no reason to discount the cost. Besides, if you cooperate with other companies, the other party puts forward some requirements for you to follow. If his needs change, do you still want to give him a discount? This is not like your professional style."
Arya said hurriedly: "That's not what I meant..."
Li Mu smiled and said: "That's okay. Although we haven't signed a contract, the money issue has been discussed before. You and I must abide by the spirit of the contract, so that if there is another opportunity to cooperate in the future, we can develop better. "
Arya is very talented in design and very professional, but after all, she has never entered the workplace. She is somewhat subjective when it comes to cooperation. She feels that she has done much less work than expected, so she is embarrassed to take more from others. However, after Li Mu took out the sign of the spirit of contract, she no longer persisted and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, I will start making renderings and formal design drawings from today. When the formal drawings come out, I will There will be a design standard for internal hardware such as screens, motherboards, buttons, jacks, etc. You just have to communicate with the OEM and let them design the internal hardware according to the standards."
Li Mu nodded, looking forward to the results of the renderings and design drawings. This is related to the future major strategies of Taobao and Yiting. As long as this MP3 player can succeed, Taobao will be able to save at least one year of struggle. If Yiting. Ting.com's official flagship store on Taobao can sell hundreds of thousands of MP3 players in a year, so it can launch a B2C platform similar to "Tmall Mall" in 2003, and can sell a product online With sales of hundreds of thousands, I don’t know how many companies that are tortured by traditional sales channels and costs will come to cooperate with us.
…
Three days later, Li Mu got a complete set of design information for the MP3 player from Arya, including precise design drawings of each component, as well as overall explosions and renderings.
Li Mu asked Arya to make a stunning rendering for himself. There are nine newly designed MP3 players in one picture. Although the models are all the same, the colors of the body shells are different. A total of There are nine colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, silver and black. The nine colors are displayed at the same time. This is also imitating nano's route. On the one hand, it improves the style of its product group, and on the other hand, it also caters to more people. aesthetic.
Li Mu was very satisfied with Arya's design. The renderings were so good that Li Mu thought he had jumped five years in time.
After confirming that there was no need to modify the design, Arya said goodbye to Li Mu for the time being. She planned to spend about a month traveling around China. Li Mu wanted to take her to Yanjing with him as a landlord. After traveling around for a while, she refused. She longed for the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, so she bought a train ticket from Yanjing all the way to Southwest. After Li Mu paid her the fee, he let her keep the mobile phone he gave her and Tell her that if anything happens in the country, call her immediately.
(End of chapter)