Jonathan Ivey is the soul of Apple's industrial design. He has been the chief designer since the IMAE era. He has experienced the IMAE era and reached the peak of his life. He is known as the smartest designer in the world and the secret weapon that all competing companies want the most. For a long time, he was the most awesome industrial designer in the world, no one.

If it weren't for Apple's brilliant appearance, Li Mu might not even remember the designer's name, so he didn't know how great Arya had achieved in the field of industrial design in his previous life. However, judging from the sketches she drew in one night, Li Mu felt that this woman's achievements would definitely 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. In the future, Arya joined Apple in 2003 and became Jonathan's most capable assistant.

After showing Li Mu all the design sketches, Arya asked him: "Mr. Li, I wonder which of these sketches is closer to what you want?"

Li Mu thought for a moment and said, "I think the last one I'm still drawing is closer."

"Is that?" Arya hurriedly turned to the last page. The sketch on it was just a simple line. At this time, Li Mu pointed to the cross-sectional sketch she drew and said, "But I hope that both sides can be closed and become a flat and round shape."

Arya nodded, and Xun used an eraser to erase the cross-section sketches that had been sketched out before, and then re-draw a flat circle.

Li Mu was basically satisfied and said to her: "It would be great if the design could be more light and thin."

Arya said: "Now it's just sketches. You can draw any sketches, but I still need to refer to the hardware configuration, including what kind of screen, buttons, and memory you are going to use. The most important thing is 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 aaa battery, the design is more limited because the thickness of the battery is relatively large, so..."

Only then did Li Mu realize that there was no problem with the MP3 using a similar design of 4, but the most important thing was the hardware and process issues. If you want to use the flat shape of nano4, the biggest problem is the battery. If you don’t use a lithium battery, even if you use a No. 7 battery, its thickness will be greatly affected.

If a lithium battery is used, the thickness problem can be solved well, but the cost will naturally be much higher. Now it is 2oo2 years, and the cost of lithium batteries can be said to be amazingly high. A mobile phone battery costs hundreds of yuan. If a mp3 is paired with a lithium battery, the cost will be due to the user's ability to withstand it.

Nowadays, domestic users' purchasing power is still in a relatively weak stage. Li Mu must consider the cost issue. Otherwise, if he really creates an mp3 that starts at two or three thousand yuan like the IPOD, he will completely disrupt his plan.

This also made Li Mu realize the one-sided nature of the layman's considerations. He didn't even think about such an important thing as a battery in advance.

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

Arya said: "Most mp3s use ordinary dry battery power supply method, with one disadvantage. The overall design must be based on the battery. However, if a single AAA battery is used, the design controllability will be greater. I recommend this power supply method. In this way, use the triangle cross-section design just now. I can widen the front as much as possible, reduce the thickness, adopt an isosceles triangle design, and make the angle of the top angle as large as possible, so that it will be thinner and more prominent the front of the player."

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

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

The front of the fuselage was quickly outlined, and then Arya began to outline the cross-section. She first drew an isosceles triangle with a large top angle.

Li Mu made his own suggestions: "Can the three corners of the cross-section be processed into an arc design? That way, it should look more natural."

Arya's pencil in her hand gently tapped the paperbook, her eyes lit up: "What a great suggestion!"

After saying that, Arya began to treat the edges and corners based on the isosceles triangle, designing the edges and corners more smoothly and naturally. Like the four-arc design of e6, the cross-section was processed into a triangle arc, which also improved the overall design sense a bit.

The battery compartment is designed appropriately in the top corner of an equilateral triangle. The protruding arc edges can just place the battery inside, and the narrowing of both sides can give people the illusion of being thinner overall.

Nearly an hour passed without realizing it, and more and more lines were outlined by Arya's pen tip, gradually covering the blank paper. A design sketch that looked like a sketch appeared in front of Li Mu, which surprised Li Mu.

The overall functional layout of this product is similar, but the difference is that Arya has added a lot of her own design elements. Although the middle position is thicker than nano due to the battery compartment, it still looks very beautiful overall, much better looking than all mp3 players of this era.

The design of the battery compartment back cover is relatively traditional, and it is a battery cover that is not much larger than the No. 7 battery. At the bottom of the back of the entire player, there is a recessed card slot to fix the battery cover.

Li Mu was a little dissatisfied with this design, and he told Arya: "Can the entire back be designed as a removable battery cover?"

Arya asked in surprise: "The whole back is integrated? Is it too troublesome to disassemble it?"

Li Mu smiled and said, "If it is a whole disassembly, it is different from this way of snapping. You need to use a hidden snapping buckle, which means that the back cover should be designed in a push-pull mode. You can remove it by pushing the snapping buckle. When you cover it, there will be no gaps or traces in the entire rear."

This design is still very novel now, but in the future, almost all electronic remote controls will adopt this hidden snap-on method. The biggest advantage of this method is its beauty and integration, and it will not be as abrupt as traditional battery covers.

Although Arya had never seen this method, after listening to Li Mu's introduction, she immediately understood what Li Mu wanted. In more than ten minutes, she drew a overall sketch of the back cover, which looked very good.

This also made Arya look at Li Mu with some admiration. Although he had not learned design, his inspiration for design seemed to have surpassed many people, and even himself seemed to be very old-fashioned.

Regarding the design of headphones, Li Mu's requirements are also to be as simple as possible while ensuring the design sense. Arya changed the design draft several times under Li Mu's instruction, but in the end she took out a design similar to the e-headphone. Li Mu was also very satisfied with this version. There is no way. Who made Apple's industrial design recognized by the whole world in her previous life? They are the only representatives in the industry who can remember.

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

Li Mu said seriously: "This is two different things. Even if some of them are my creativity, you are helping me improve it. There is no reason to discount the fees. Besides, if you cooperate with other companies and the other party makes some demands for you to change according to their needs, would you still have to discount them? This is not like your professional style."

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

Li Mu smiled and said, "That's fine. Although we didn't sign a contract, the money issue was negotiated before. You and I have to abide by the spirit of the contract, so that if there is another opportunity to cooperate in the future, we can carry out better."

Arya has a very high design talent and very professional, but after all, she has never entered the workplace. She is a bit subjective in dealing with cooperation. She feels that she has done much less work than expected, so she is embarrassed to get more rewards from others. But after Li Mu took out the sign of the contract spirit, she no longer insisted and said to Li Mu: "Mr. Li, I will start to make renderings and formal design drawings from today. After the official drawings come out, I will give the screen, motherboard, buttons, jacks and other internal hardware. You can communicate with the OEM manufacturers and let them design the internal hardware according to the standards."

Li Mu nodded, looking forward to the effect after the renderings and design drawings came out. This is related to the major strategy of Taobao and Yiting.com in the future. As long as this MP3 player is successful, Taobao will struggle for at least one year. If Yiting.com can sell hundreds of thousands of mp3s in the official flagship store of Taobao store within a year, then he can launch a b2 platform similar to "Tmall Mall" in 2oo3, and can sell a product online to hundreds of thousands of sales. At that time, I don't know how many companies that are tortured by traditional sales channels and costs will snatch the ball to find themselves to cooperate.

...

Three days later, Li Mu got the complete set of design information for the mp3 player from Arya, including the precise design drawings of each component, as well as the overall explosion and renderings.

Li Mu asked Arya to make a stunning rendering for herself. There are nine newly designed mp3 players on one picture. Although the models are the same, the colors of the color shells of the body are different. There are nine colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, silver and black. The nine colors are displayed at the same time. This is also an imitation route. On the one hand, it improves the style of his product group, and on the other hand, it is also to cater to more people's aesthetics.

Li Mu was very satisfied with Arya's design. The renderings were so good that Li Mu thought he had crossed five years at once.
Chapter completed!