Concept
The core concept behind the Motorola One Action and Vision phones was to employ a consistent industrial design language and shared tooling, while offering distinguished CMF options to cater to the diverse preferences of youthful consumers. This endeavor, alongside with other innovations, resulted in the Motorola Design Team being honored with the 2020 iF award.
CMF Exploration
The uniqueness of Motorola One Vision is the imitation of the edge glow effect on the back inlay. This effect is achieved by a printed gradient that smoothly transitions from darker hues to colors along the edges of the phone. While achieving this effect may seem straightforward through various manufacturing methods, the reality is that ensuring a consistent and precise gradient, necessitated the use of printing. This process was deemed the most suitable, eliminating the need for a potentially costly jig.
Locking down the process is only the first step. Even the slightest color variation in printing can lead to a significant change in the final effect after application to the film and glass. To attain the optimal desired outcome, designers collaborated closely with the print shop and film manufactures, conducting a series of extensive trials.
On the other hand, Motorola One Action faced a different challenge. The main objective was to highlight the micro-pattern and the glaring effect on the back inlay. Achieving this visual effect on a white SKU necessitated striking the perfect balance between the golden NCOC coating and the appearance of white.
Simply put, a stronger glaring effect could cause the white color to take on a yellowish tone and appear less distinct as “white.” If the glaring effect were too weak, it would fail to showcase the quality of micro-pattern and the premium attributes of the transparent material. Noted that in this scenario, the white SKU was intentionally not subjected to gradient printing to avoid excessive visual complexity, which ultimately contributed to achieving a refined and elegant final result.
Launch
Deliverable: From concept to launch
Industry: Consumer tech
Company: Motorola (a Lenovo company)
Team: Rina Shin, Shasha Dong, Taylor Yang, Justin Liang, Yunchao Zhang
Year: 2018-2019
