Jonathan Ivey is the soul of Apple's industrial design, he has been the chief designer since the iPod era, after experiencing the iMac and iPad, he has reached the peak of his life in the iPhone era, and is known as the smartest designer in the world, and is the secret weapon that all competing companies want to get, and for a long time, he is the world's best industrial designer, no one. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

If it weren't for Apple's brilliance, Li Mu might not even be able to remember the designer's name, so he didn't know how much Arya had achieved in the field of industrial design in her previous life, but judging from the sketches she drew casually in one night, 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 Northumbria University's School of Design, and in the future, Arya joined Apple in 2003 and became Jonathan's most powerful assistant.

After Arya showed Li Mu several design sketches, she asked him, "Mr. Li, I don't know which of these sketches is closer to what you want?"

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "I think the last one that is still being painted is closer." ”

"Really?" Arya hurriedly turned to the last page, the sketch on it was just a simple line, at this time, Li Mu pointed to the upper and lower cross-sectional sketches she had drawn, and said, "But here I hope that the two sides can be retracted and become an oblate type." ”

Arya nodded, quickly erased the previously sketched cross-section with an eraser, and redrew a flat circle.

Li Mu was basically satisfied, and said to her: "It would be nice if the design could be lighter and thinner." ”

Arya said: "Now it's just a sketch, you can draw a sketch, but I still have to refer to the hardware configuration, including what kind of screen you are going to use, what kind of buttons, what kind of memory, and most importantly, 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 an AAA battery, the design is more limited, because the thickness of the battery is relatively large, so ......"

Li Mu then thought,MP3There is no problem with using iPod-nano4 similar design,But the most critical thing is hardware and process problems,Want to use nano4The flat shape,The biggest problem is the battery,If you don't use lithium battery,Then even if you use the smallest AAA,That is, No. 7 battery,Its thickness will be greatly affected。

If the use of lithium battery, the problem of thickness can be well solved, but the cost will naturally be much higher, now is 2002, the cost of lithium battery can be said to be amazingly high, a mobile phone battery often hundreds, if you give an MP3 with lithium battery, the cost will exceed the user's affordability.

NOW THE PURCHASING POWER OF DOMESTIC USERS IS INDEED STILL IN A RELATIVELY WEAK STAGE, LI MU MUST CONSIDER THE COST OF THE PROBLEM, OTHERWISE IF HE REALLY MAKES AN MP3 LIKE IPOD, WHICH CAN START AT TWO OR THREE THOUSAND YUAN AT EVERY TURN, IT WILL COMPLETELY DISRUPT HIS PLAN.

This also made Li Mu realize the one-sidedness of the layman's consideration of things, and he didn't even think of it in advance for such an important thing as the battery.

Li Mu smacked his lips and asked Arya, "If you use ordinary batteries, do you have any good design suggestions?"

Arya said, " Most MP3 uses the power supply method of ordinary dry batteries, there is one shortcoming, the overall design should be carried out according to the battery, but if a single AAA battery is used, the controllability in the design is greater, I recommend using this power supply method, in this way, with the design of the triangle cross-section just now, I can widen the front as much as possible, reduce the thickness, adopt the design of the isosceles triangle, and make the angle of the top angle as large as possible, so that it is thinner and lighter, and the front of the player can be more prominent. ”

Li Mu nodded and said, "You can change it and try it." ”

Arya immediately turned to a new page, pencil in hand, and began to sketch the lines.

The front of the fuselage was quickly sketched, and immediately after that, Arya began to sketch the cross-section, first drawing an isosceles triangle with a large apex angle.

Li Mu put forward his own suggestion: "Can the three corners of the cross-section be treated into a circular design? ”

The pencil in Arya's hand tapped lightly on the sketchbook, and her eyes lit up: "What a great suggestion!"

Anyway, Arya began to process the edges and corners on the basis of the isosceles triangle, and designed the edges and corners to be more sleek and natural, similar to the iPhone6's four-arc design, and the cross-section was processed into a triangular arc, so that the overall design sense was also improved.

The design of the battery compartment is appropriately arranged within the top corner of the equilateral triangle, the convex arc edge is just right to place the battery inside, and the narrowing of the sides can give the illusion of a thinner whole.

Unconsciously, nearly an hour passed, and more and more lines were outlined by the tip of Arya's pen, gradually covering the blank paper, and a design sketch like a sketch appeared in front of Li Mu, which made Li Mu amazed.

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 because of the battery compartment, it is thicker than the nano in the middle, but the overall look is still very beautiful, much better than all MP3 players in this era.

The design of the back cover of the battery compartment is more traditional, it is a battery cover that is not much larger than the size seven battery, and at the bottom of the entire back of the player, there is a recessed card slot for holding the battery cover.

Li Mu was a little dissatisfied with this design, and he said to Arya: "Can you design the entire back into a removable battery cover?"

Arya was a little surprised and asked, "Is the whole back in one?"

Li Mu said with a smile: "If it is disassembled as a whole, it is not the same way to buckle this way, to use a hidden buckle, that is to say, the back cover should be designed to push and pull the mode, push open the buckle can be removed, when the cover is on, the entire rear can not see any gaps and traces." ”

This design is still very new now, but in the future, almost all electronic remote controls will use this way of hiding the buckle, the biggest advantage of this way is that it is beautiful, and it is integrated, and it will not be as abrupt as the traditional battery cover.

Although Arya hadn't seen this way before, after listening to Li Mu's introduction, she immediately knew what kind of thing Li Mu wanted, and in more than ten minutes, she drew an overall sketch of the back cover, which looked very good.

This also made Arya a little impressed by Li Mu, although he did not study design, but his inspiration for design seems to surpass many people, and even he seems to be very avant-garde.

Regarding the design of the earphones, Li Mu's requirements are also as concise as possible under the condition of ensuring the sense of design, Arya changed the design draft several times under the instruction of Li Mu, and finally came up with a design similar to the iPhone headphones, Li Mu is also very satisfied with this version, no way, who made Apple's industrial design in the last life was recognized and affirmed by the world, Li Mu can only think of the industry representatives.

After the sketch of the overall design was finalized, Arya herself couldn't put down the effect of the final design, and she said to Li Mu sincerely: "Mr. Li, in fact, most of this player is your creativity, and we set the cost before, I think it is more appropriate to reduce it by half." ”

Li Mu said: "These are two different things, even if part of it is my creativity, you are helping me improve 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 change according to his needs, do you still want to give him a discount? This is not like your professional style." ”

Arya hurriedly said, "I didn't mean that......"

Li Mu smiled: "That's okay, although we haven't signed a contract, but the issue of money has been negotiated before, you and I have to abide by the spirit of the contract, so that if there is a chance to cooperate in the future, it can be better carried out." ”

Arya's design talent is very high and very professional, but after all, she has not entered the workplace, and she is a little subjective in dealing with cooperation, and she feels that she has done much less work than expected, so she is embarrassed to take more compensation from others, but after Li Mu took out the signboard of the spirit of the contract, she no longer insisted, and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, I will start to make renderings and formal design drawings from today, and when the official drawings come out, I will give the screen, motherboard, buttons, There is a design standard for internal hardware such as jacks, and you can communicate with the foundry and let them design the internal hardware according to the standard. ”

Li Mu nodded, looking forward to the effect of renderings and design drawings, which is related to the future of Taobao and Yiting.com's major strategy, as long as this MP3 player can be successful, Taobao can struggle for at least a year, if Yiting.com can sell hundreds of thousands of MP3 units in the official flagship store of Taobao store within a year, then he can start a similar "Tmall Mall" in 2003 The B2C platform can achieve hundreds of thousands of sales of a product online, and I don't know how many companies that are tormented by traditional sales channels and costs will come to their own cooperation.

……

Three days later, Li Mu obtained a full set of design materials for the MP3 player from Arya's hand, including the precise design drawings of each component, as well as the overall explosion and rendering.

Li Mu asked Arya to make a stunning rendering of herself,There are a total of nine newly designed MP3 players on one picture,Although the models are the same,But the color of the fuselage color shell is different,There are a total of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple,And silver and black, these nine colors,Nine colors are displayed at the same timeThis is also imitating the route of nano,On the one hand, it enhances the style of its product group,On the other hand, it is also to cater to the aesthetics of more people。

Li Mu was very satisfied with Arya's design, and the rendering effect was so good that Li Mu thought that he had crossed five years at once.

After making sure that there is nothing to modify in the design drawing, Arya said goodbye to Li Mu temporarily, she was going to take out about a month to walk around Huaxia, Li Mu wanted to take her around Yanjing to play around as a landlord, but she refused, she longed for the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, so she bought a train ticket from Yanjing all the way to the southwest, Li Mu paid her the fee, let her keep the mobile phone she gave her, and told her that if something happened in the country, call herself in time. (To be continued.) )