urbie./
SMARTPHONE ACCESSORY
2017
London// Central Saint Martins
Tutors// Matt Malpass, Nick Rhodes
Group Project// Giorgia Rossi, Stella Taousiani, Jiayi Li, Xiaonan Zhang
gamification, digital nomads, ux, service design, active travelling, global network
SERVICE DESIGN/ UX/PRODUCT
This project is about the interrelationships between the body,mobile technology and how consumption affords social capital
Smartphones are becoming ubiquitous in developed markets.They enable people to act, interact and manage their lives in ways
that were unimaginable even a decade ago. But beyond their utilitarian benefits, smartphones have emerged as a key semiotic device: a communicator of our personal tastes, values, and social status2. Arguably, the smartphone is our most intimate
companion. It lives with us more closely than any other category of product. We keep them close to our bodies like clothing.
We wear smartphone accessories like jewellery – we even devolveour consciousness in part, to them too. To this extent, the
smartphone can be seen as an extension of minds, a surrogate,companion; a magical avatar; and ultimately a simulacrum - an
idealised representation of the self.
Design and prototype a new accessory for a smartphone to communicate its
creative, luxury positioning.
Urbie is an engaging urban game, a reflection of its user's activity in the city. Urbie is for the artistic minded new cosmopolitan and it’s building up a community entirely devoted to culture.
Urbie is a badge for culture seekers and, combined with UrbieApp, provides to the Huawei user a unique experience.
If you are a culture keeper, you can easily share your work through the app and Huawei will provide you with a sticker that identifies you as part of its growing community.
That's also how the culture seeker is going to find you: through the app he finds new spots all over the world and the more he explores the city, the more he's rewarded. In fact, as soon as he gets less than 10 metres to the UrbieSpot, he can check-in with the
badge, collecting points to unlock prizes.
Define the term" luxury" A great amount of time was invested at the beginning in defining the term luxury and how our designs through smartphone accessories would respond to that
Define and Respond to the needs of the clients which were unclear. The company visited CSM various times, but the needs were unclear. After the first visit of the company I realised that they had not defined their needs and we, as designers where challenged to define them. This was the first time for most of us to work with such a demanding client with such a big influence in the global market.
Define the word "creative" The clients emphasised in the term "creative" in most of the meetings. It was a term that also needed to be redefined in order to come up to the final result.
The culture keepers can share their work through the app and Huawei will provide them with a sticker that identifies you as part of its growing community.
That is also how the culture seeker is going to find them: through the app he finds new spots all over the world and the more he explores the city, the more he’s rewarded. In fact, as soon as he gets less than 10 metres to the UrbieSpot, he can check-in with the badge, collecting points to unlock amazing prizes.
urbie badge
The culture keepers create a profile on the urbie app sharing the location of the work they want to promote as well as a few words and other examples of their work.
After the Huawei urbie community accepts them, they become a part of the community and their spot is appeared on the urbie map.
urbie app
urbie badge
The core functions as the key that gives life to Urbie. It is essential for the check-in and Bluetooth paired with the Huawei phone. The core comes with the postive whereas the badge comes with the negative part. The connection to the clothes or accessories of the user happens with the metallic pin.
For the next seasons Huawei is going to collaborate with widely known artists and designers.
THE COLLECTION 0F 2017
Thomas Heatherwick
Takashi Murakami
Cai Guo-Quiang
WINTER SPRING SUMMER AUTUMN
Central Saint Martins
STORYBOARD/.
Define the term" luxury" Luxury was perceived as the feeling of belonging to a special network where not everyone can have access to. The users of urbie can get access into secret places and events as well as meet other people that belong to the same network and share similar interests. Urbie badge represents your cultural level, your urban engagement, your activities within the urban environment and the cultural activities within. The "seasonal collection" character of the proposal also responds to the definition of Luxury. The users have the possibility to create their own special collection of a budge designed by a famous artist each year.
Define and Respond to the needs of the clients which were unclear. Urbie would have been a great way for the company to attract attention from the artistic networks around the world as well as a very good way of advertising the company through the Urbie sticker which is placed in various locations around the city.
Define the word "creative" Each person is creative. Urbie gives its users the opportunity to bring out the most creative self by collecting experiences and references around different types of the creativity. Every visit of the Urbie user to an other part of the network, is an opportunity to explore their own creative self