Creatr

A concept design which applies the design language of Beats Electronics to a product which isn’t likely to be designed by this company — a 3D pen.

Background

For anyone who’s been living under a rock for the past ten years: Beats Electronics (Beats by Dre) is a modern and stylish company which produces audio products. Beats has established an incredible branding with an iconic design language.
They closely work together with Apple. In fact, Beats is a subsidiary of the well- known tech company. This really validates the importance of design and user experience of Beats products.

The 3D pen is a pretty new product which embraces the beloved DIY/ Arts & Craft trend and acts as a tool for creativity. It’s all about making cool and colorful stuff, having fun and/or challenging yourself to build extraordinary creations. With the 3D pen, I chose a relatively new product that, unlike e.g. a flashlight, has not been designed several times. As a side effect, the pen also supports Beats message, which I explored later on.

I believe, that Beats’ design language is incredibly thought through and beautiful. This belief was only reinforced once I analyzed it more closely.

Understanding the language

When looking at Beats products, it is very obvious that there is some sort of connection. Even if you didn’t know that all of these products are designed by the same company, you could easily guess that they are. Something in their aesthetics is familiar and connective.
Beats uses specific design elements to creates this theme throughout their products. After taking a closer look at their product lineup (which includes a variety of over-ear-, on-ear- and in-ear headphones as well as speakers), I found out what those elements are.

Beats uses very organic and flowing shapes that are sectioned using sharp lines. The line structure of the products is very dynamic which creates a modern look. On top of that, they use harsh transitions and detailed cutouts to add details to the shape. With an occasional color blocking pigmentation, the company highlights these details to create a very unique design.

Overall, Beats uses a smart combination of soft areas and sharp lines to create a stunning design. But after taking an even closer look at each product, I noticed a difference in complexity.
The Beats Studio3 (middle) and urBeats2 (2nd right) show a significant difference in design. While the Beats Studio3 make use of a more complex shape, the urBeats2 are made of more primitive looking components. That is because of their smart lineup which varies from simple (lower quality) to complex (high quality) products. This is reflected in the designs too: the powerful headphones have a more organic looking shape, while the basic ones make use of simplicity.
After realizing that, I decided to design two Creatr pens to best represent this variety.

More than headphones

In 2014, Beats spent $82 million in the U.S. on advertising alone. It is no secret that the company established a certain image as a big part of their branding. This affects their philosophy, which surprisingly influences the design language.

This is a screenshot from Beats’ official Instagram page. It really gives you insights on their philosophy. It’s about the people and their unique stories. It shows the complexity of humanity and focuses on the extraordinarily of an individual.

Beats then designed their product around that ‘message’. To not make everything complex (you can read more about that in my blog post ‘Why complexity is essential’, wink wink), beats uses simplicity. That way, the user can focus on the complexity of their story.

Applying the language

That is how I designed the Creatrs. Using the design language and philosophy, I sketched out shapes that came to my mind and could be turned into a pen-like product. This is basically visual brainstorming and like any brainstorming, there are good ideas and not that great ones.

After visualizing the first shape that came to my mind, I sorted out the terrible ones and only kept a few. To pick out my favourites even closer, I separated the pre-designs in a front and back piece. This created an obvious choice. After a while of matching different pieces, I found two final shapes that work as a simpler and more complex design. In separate design processes, I added details to the shapes. (Note that all this time I was factoring in the Beats design language.) From that point on I just kept refining the designs as sketches.

Lastly, I created 3D models of both Creatrs which I could then fine tune to have the optimized proportions. Creating a 3D model really helps to visualize the design and actually figure out how it’ll look as an object.
The colors I chose for the right pen are directly inspired by the headphones. The left one takes inspiration from lighter Beats headphones and Apple Products. Because Beats is a subsidiary of Apple, their design styles work well together. That’s why I took a little inspiration from Apple for this pen because of its simplicity. For the colors, I used some of the commonly used and more basic tones.

Beyond the pen

These two different pens represent slightly different messages. These messages can be best explained when using stories to represent them. The first Creatr is like a simple sentence. It is like an almost empty page that is ready to be filled with creativity and exciting stories. The second one, on the other hand, is a story itself. A complex story with an intense plot and many words.

These stories need names though. After doing some thinking, I realized that the simple creatr is the basic 3D pen (‘basic’ doesn’t sound nice though so I slightly modified it to base). The second one is a more powerful version which immediately triggered the word pro in me.
So there you have it Creatr base and Creatr pro.

Beats packaging is very specific, I realized. That’s why I created packaging for the Creatrs that is based on the original box but with modifications to fit the product. The side with all the stats and specs can be seen above.
With some research on the packaging, I saw that there is a statement with a short text on one side. I really wanted to send out a message with this one. “People aren’t creating all that’s on their mind”

“Pure creativity means having courage. The courage to show your heart and soul. Being creative means sharing parts of your mind and that’s not always easy. It takes a lot of bravery to open up like this. But once you do, you can create absolutely breathtaking and stunning things.”

Final

I used a 3D printer to create a model of both Creatrs.