#TimeScoop Design Language Matters – Update 84
There’s a LOT going on at the moment. If we may, we’ll just do a written update this week…
First, thank you for your amazingly positive feedback on the design evolution of Air.
As you know we’ve done many, many updates over the last couple of years, and often asked for feedback… but last week’s Update 83 #RisingAir now holds the record for the most overwhelming response of all time!
Sanja, Kate & Amy couldn’t believe their eyes Monday morning at the number of emails with support and suggestions. Thank you.
This week Christos, our DFM (Design for Manufacturing) 3D engineer and Seymour have done a bunch of work on MAGFAST Time, following on from your comments from the update before last.
The general consensus is that the press-to-pop-out option is preferred. (See the options explained here in update 82).
This means that the hole/tunnel right through from front to back is no longer needed (that was previously how you’d move the charging platform, by ‘poking’ it with your finger.
You’d think ‘OK so just close up the hole right?’. Well yes, but our attitude when we make a change is always to ask how we can take the opportunity to make something better, cooler, more thoughtful.
The obvious way to ‘close the hole’ would be just to kind of block it off with a flat surface. Just make the hole deep enough for the wireless charging port to fold in, no more.
Instead we looked across the product range. Pros like Christos use this phrase ‘design language’ of a brand, meaning what kinds of things do we do or not do in our designs, so that over time you can tell its us.
Across all MAGFAST products there’s only a single design language precedent for a ‘negative space’, i.e. carving a nook or cave out of a flat surface… its the two teardrop scoops on the back of Wall for storing the tips.
You might have heard me talk about those scoops before. Hours of work for a detail you’ll rarely see but we want to be not just functional but gorgeous when you do, so they’re made with really smooth curves in and out so they feel great under your fingers.
And that’s what we’re doing with the redesigned home for Time’s charging platform. A circular, smooth scoop you’ll rarely see, and touch even less, but that will be just delightful when you do!
And…
Seymour was down at the China Consulate in New York yesterday because he is going over to visit with MAGFAST partners there later in the month. You don’t strictly need a visa to land in Hong Kong and visit Shenzhen – at least not a full business visa – but Seymour want maximum flexibility to dive anywhere in the supply chain at any time while he is there.
If you’ve been following us closely you know that the critical timeline element is starting the tooling (the molds) for MAGFAST Wall, because Wall has an extra 12 weeks in the timeline for ETL safety certification. Starting Wall tooling depends on absolute satisfaction that the electro-magnetic interface (really the core of MAGFAST) is perfect, because it would be a 3-month, $50,000 mistake to start cutting that tool and then determine that a change needed to be made!
So his visit, in part, is to work intensively with the teams on that interface as well as finalize, we hope, a bunch of other design elements.
If you’ve got specific questions you’d like answered on his trip, as always, drop us a line.
