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Db60 Active Loudspeaker by DNgroup Design Team |
Home > Winners > Design #28286 >Interview |
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FS: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
D: Part of the inspiration came from the MUJI wall mounted CD player - One of the designers at our design office has one of those at home. It's a design we all love for its simplicity and iconic expression. The inspiration led us into a design process, wanting to develop and design an easy-to-use wall mounted speaker that will play music from the devices many of us own - smart phones, tablets and digital music players. Humour is important for us in our daily lives and we wanted to include that in the design as well. Many of the loudspeaker products for mobile devices on the market today falls into two categories (as we see it). 1. Very sporty/rugged (focusing on young people on the move) and battery driven. 2. iPhone altars - speakers in various shapes, all with the iPhone as the all-important focus of the design. It is not that we do not like Apple; we do and are inspired by their focus on users and usage - But we wanted to design a loudspeaker that has its own design language and style - and is just as happy playing music from HTC, Samsung, Sony and Nokia phones as Apples iPhone's. That guided the design development in the direction of the db60 active speaker being very, very easy to use and having great looks that intentionally puts it on the border between a speaker and a piece of modern furniture/interior design.
FS: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?
D: We wanted to design an easy-to-use active speaker that has its own character and silhouette while blending in perfectly with interior decors.
FS: What are your future plans for this award winning design?
D: We are currently well-underway in readying the db60 speaker for production using Kickstarter as the funding platform. We expect to go online in Q3 2013
FS: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?
D: The design idea process and physical design took around one and a half month. Afterwards the work on ME, development of the PCB, soundimage and accoustics have been going on for about 7 months.
FS: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?
D: At DNgroup (our design office) we have worked closely with many clients worldwide in developing and designing loudspeakers. We started an internal design competition to see what we could come up with having no client restraints, the focus being on smaller, active speakers - db60 was one of the resulting designs from that competition.
FS: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?
D: Our plan is to produce the db60 speaker our selves. We are doing the last details these months on the final product and plan to use Kickstarter as a funding platform in Q3, 2013
FS: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?
D: Yes, we work together as a team at DNgroup. Daily input and dicussions help shape the different work and designs we do.
FS: Who is the target customer for his design?
D: The targeted customer for the speaker is a male/female smartphone user between 20 and 45 years of age.
FS: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
D: The market is filled with bluetooth speakers today. We think our design sets itself apart from the big crowd by having a design that is the perfect mix of an elegant speaker and a modern piece of interior design. Our many years of experience in designing loudspeakers will result in great sound and design at an affordable price.
FS: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
D: db60 - has some its inspiration from 60db (decibel). 60 decibel is characterized as a normal and comfortable conversation level. Also both the letters d and b looks a lot like the iconic shape of the speaker. We liked the simplicity of the decibel story and the short name.
FS: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
D: The iconic shape - we like the idea of it being a speaker with a wing stuck to the side - it's got a certain humorous twist to it. It is a serious speaker/interior design object, but it does not take itself to serious.
FS: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?
D: Florent Gatin - Acoustic engineer (France), Brian - Electrical engineer (Taiwan), Jakob Normand - industrial designer (DNgroup), Frederick Rickmann, designer (DNgroup), Bjarke Mejnertsen - design engineer (DNgroup), Sherry Chin - designer (Dngroup), Cosmina Rotaru - Marketing (DNgroup) Patrick Johansen - designer (DNgroup), Suzanne Steecklenburg - admin (DNgroup)
FS: What is the role of technology in this particular design?
D: It is in the backgorund - we want the speaker to be a no-hazzle product. The design has NO buttons. Bluetooth "wakes" on input, also the speaker "wakes" from standby on earphone jack connection. This means no difficult connection setups - truly easy to use. And as a realy usefull user feature, we have added a USB port under the wing for charging your mobile device, when placed on the wing.
FS: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?
D: Based on intuition, user insights and a strong belief in good design
FS: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?
D: We hoped - of course - that we had a chance of winning, and will use that as a springboard for commercialization
FS: Thank you for providing us with this opportunity to interview you.
A' Design Award and Competitions grants rights to press members and bloggers to use parts of this interview. This interview is provided as it is; DesignPRWire and A' Design Award and Competitions cannot be held responsible for the answers given by participating designers.
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