Chapter 444

Jonathan Ivey is the soul of Apple's industrial design. He has been the chief designer since the era of iPod. After experiencing IMAC and iPad, he has come to the top of his life in the era of iPhone. He is known as the most intelligent designer in the world and the secret weapon that all competing companies want most. For a long time, he was the most powerful industrial designer in the world, not one of them.

If it wasn't for Apple's brilliance, Li Mu might not even remember the designer's name, so he didn't know how much Elia had achieved in the field of industrial design in her last life, but from the sketches she sketched out at random in one night, Li Mu thought that this woman's achievements would not be bad.

What Li Mu didn't know is that Elia and Jonathan are alumni of the same school. Both graduated from the school of design of Northumbria University. In the future, Elia joined apple in 2003 and became Jonathan's most powerful assistant.

Aliya showed Li Mu several design sketches and asked him, "Mr. Li, do you know which one is closer to what you want?"

"I think the last one that is still drawing is closer," Li musuo said after thinking

"Is it?" Aliya hurriedly turned to the last page. The sketch above was just a simple line. At this time, Li Mu pointed to the cross-section sketch she drew, and said, "but here I hope that both sides can be folded up to become a oblate shape."

Elia nodded, rubbed off the sketch of the cross-section that had been sketched before, and then made a new flat circle.

Li Mu was basically satisfied and said to her, "if only the design could be lighter."

"It's just a sketch now, but I still need to refer to the hardware configuration, including what kind of screen, what kind of button, what kind of memory you are going to use. The most important thing is what kind of battery you want to use. If it's a lithium battery, the design is more flexible. If it's a normal AA battery If the pool or AAA battery is used, the design is relatively limited, because the thickness of the battery is relatively large, so... "

Li Mu thought that there was no problem in adopting similar design of ipod-nano-4 for MP3, but the most critical problem was hardware and technology. If he wanted to use the flat shape of nano-4, the biggest problem was battery. If he did not use lithium battery, even if he used the smallest AAA, that is, No.7 battery, its thickness would be greatly affected.

If lithium battery is used, the problem of thickness can be solved well, but the cost will be much higher naturally. Now it is 2002, the cost of lithium battery can be said to be staggering. A cell phone battery is often hundreds of pieces. If an MP3 is matched with lithium battery, the cost will exceed the user's capacity.

At present, the purchasing power of domestic users is still in a relatively weak stage. Li Mu must consider the cost. Otherwise, if he really makes an MP3 that starts at a cost of 2300 yuan like iPod, his plan will be completely disrupted.

This also made Li Mu realize the one-sided consideration of things by laymen. For such an important thing as battery, he didn't think of it in advance.

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

"Most MP3 players are powered by ordinary dry batteries. There is only one disadvantage. They need to be designed as a whole according to the batteries. However, if a single AAA battery is used, the controllability of the design will be greater. I suggest using this power supply mode. In this way, I can widen the front as much as possible by using the design of the triangular cross section just now." , reduce the thickness, use the isosceles triangle design, and try to make the angle of the top angle larger, so that it is lighter and more prominent on the front of the player. "

Li Mu nodded and said, "try it again."

Aliya immediately turned to a new page and began to draw lines with a pencil in her hand.

The front of the fuselage was quickly sketched, and then Elia began to sketch the cross-section. She first drew an isosceles triangle with a large vertex angle.

Li Mu put forward his own suggestion: "can the three corners of the cross section be treated as circular arc design? In that case, it should look more natural. "

Elia's pencil tapped on the sketch book, and her eyes brightened: "what a great suggestion!"

After all, Elia began to make edges and corners more smooth and natural on the basis of isosceles triangles. Like the iPhone 6's four arc design, she made the cross-section into triangular arcs, which improved the overall design sense.

The design of the battery compartment is properly arranged in the top angle of the equilateral triangle. The protruding arc edge can place the battery in the compartment, and the narrowing of the two sides can give the illusion of a thinner whole.

Unconsciously, nearly an hour later, there are more and more lines outlined by Elia's nib, gradually covering the blank paper. A design sketch like a sketch works appeared in front of Li Mu, which made him marvel.

The overall functional layout of this product is similar to that of the iPod Nano, but the difference is that aliya has added many design elements of her own. Although the middle position of this product is thicker than that of the nano due to the battery compartment, 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 not much larger than the No. 7 battery. At the bottom of the back of the whole player, there is a concave card slot for fixing the battery cover.

Li Mu was not satisfied with this design. He said to aliya, "can you design the whole back as a removable battery cover?"

Aliya asked a little surprised, "the whole back in one? Is that too much trouble to dismantle? "

Li Mu said with a smile, "if it's a whole disassembly, it's different to use this kind of buckle. It's necessary to use the hidden buckle, that is to say, the back cover should be designed as a push-pull mode. When the buckle is pushed, it can be disassembled. When the cover is put on, there is no gap or trace in the whole back."

This design is still very novel now, but in the future, almost all electronic remote controls adopt this hidden buckle method. The biggest advantage of this method is beauty, and integration, not as abrupt as the traditional battery cover.

Although aliya hasn't seen this way before, after listening to Li Mu's introduction, she immediately knew what exactly Li Mu wanted. In more than ten minutes, she drew a whole back cover sketch, which seemed to be very good.

This also made aliya a little impressed with Li Mu. Although he didn't learn design, his inspiration for design seemed to surpass many people, and even he seemed to be very avant-garde.

As for the design of earphones, Li Mu's requirement is also to keep the design as simple as possible under the condition of ensuring the sense of design. Aliya changed the design manuscript several times under Li Mu's instruction, and finally came up with a design similar to iPhone earphones. Li Mu was also very satisfied with this version. There was no way. Who made apple's industrial design recognized and affirmed by the whole world in the last world, Li Mu can only think of them as representatives of the industry.

After finalizing the sketch of the overall design, aliya herself was very fond of the final design effect. She sincerely said to Li Mu, "Mr. Li, in fact, most of this player is your creativity. I think it's more appropriate to cut half of the fees we set before."

Li Mu said positively, "this is different. Even if some of my ideas are my ideas, you are helping me to improve them. There is no reason to discount on the cost. Besides, if you cooperate with other companies and the other company puts forward some demands for you to change according to his needs, do you still want to give him a discount? It's not like your professionalism. "

"I don't mean that..." aliya said hurriedly

Li Mu said with a smile, "that's OK. Although we didn't sign the contract, the money issue was also discussed before. You and I have to abide by the spirit of the contract. In this way, if there is another opportunity for cooperation in the future, we can carry out it better."

Elia's design talent is very high and very professional, but she has never entered the workplace after all. She has some subjectivity in dealing with cooperation. She feels that her work is much less than expected, so she is embarrassed to take other people's remuneration. But after Li Mu takes out the sign of contractual spirit, she no longer insists on it. She says to Li Mu, "Mr. Li, I will start today Make rendering renderings and formal design drawings. When the formal drawings come out, I will set a design standard for the internal hardware such as screen, mainboard, buttons and sockets. You can communicate with the OEM to let them design the internal hardware according to the standard. "

Li Mu nodded and looked forward to the effect of rendering and design drawings, which is related to the major strategy of taobao.com and easygoing.com in the future. As long as this MP3 player can be successful, Taobao will be able to fight for at least one year less. If easygoing.com can sell hundreds of thousands of MP3 players in the official flagship store of taobao.com in one year, then it can start a similar one in 2003 On the B2C platform of tmall mall, we can sell hundreds of thousands of products online. At that time, we don't know how many enterprises suffering from traditional sales channels and costs will come to cooperate with us.

……

Three days later, Li Mu got a complete set of MP3 player design materials from Elia, including the accurate design drawings of each part, as well as the overall exploded and rendered drawings.

Li Mu asked aliya to make an amazing rendering for herself. There are nine newly designed MP3 players in one picture. Although the models are the same, the color of the body shell is different. There are nine kinds of colors: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, purple, silver and black. Nine kinds of colors are displayed at the same time to imitate the nano's route. On the one hand, improve yourself The style of product group, on the other hand, is to cater to more people's aesthetic.

Li Mu is very satisfied with aliya's design. The effect of the rendering is so good that Li Mu thinks he has crossed the scene for five years.

After confirming that there was no need to modify the design drawing, aliya said goodbye to Li Mu for the time being. She was going to spend about a month walking around China. Li Mu wanted to take her around Yanjing as a host, but she refused. She went to the Yungui Plateau, so she bought a train ticket from Yanjing to the southwest. Li Mu paid for it After clearing her account, let her keep the cell phone she gave her, and tell her to call her in time if something happens in China. (to be continued. )