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Background

Helios Labs, based in Shanghai, specializes in making set top boxes for home entertainment that stream PC-stored movies, music and photos as well as Internet media content straight to a television.  Helios Labs came to Speck Design for our expertise in Industrial Design to develop an enclosure for their new flagship product, the X3500 Networked Media Player, a wired and wireless player for streaming content.  The objective was to design a new exterior enclosure with a fresh and innovative design that would communicate high value to the user.

Challenge

The project challenges of designing the X3500 media player included:

• Incorporating an American design influence into the new media player while considering Helios Labs’ design attributes.
• Developing a visual language that reflected the high-performance aspect of the product.
• Creating a design around the space constraints and cable management of the media player.

Solution

Speck Design presented a series of hand-shaped foam models to Helios Labs and underwent  three rounds of iterations including working on the product branding before coming up with the final design.  As part of the design exploration, we collaborated with the Speck Design office in China, brainstorming ideas while considering the different perspectives of both the U.S. and China ID teams.  We explored a series of concepts, including a design that reflected the elegance of a geode crystal rock: simple on the outside yet complex and brilliant on the inside.  Although the driver electronics and real estate of the media player had been defined, we still needed to create a design that incorporated the product’s cable management.  The earlier solutions that addressed the cable management included adding features such as a loop for storing the cables.

Results

Throughout the design phases, we sought to move in an innovative design direction while providing Helios Labs with a foothold on the aesthetics.  Speck Design also capitalized on the mobility aspect of the product, designing a product that appealed to a global market, by considering not only the product’s appearance, but also the overall user experience in terms of how the product fits into the user’s daily life.  Through the combined perspectives of the China and U.S. offices, we addressed the form, function, and aesthetic appeal of the media player, bridging high-performance technology with elegant design.

PROJECT INFO

• Client:

  Helios

• Project:

  Networked Media Player

• Industry:

  Networking