Designers: Logan Steinfeld, Staples Design, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA
Manufacturer: Staples Design, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA
NXT Technologies is a new brand designed to compete head-to-head with premium consumer electronics products in leading retail and online channels.
Its mission is to establish a recognizable and preferred brand experience across a range of essential product segments.
The brand provides reliable, human-centered products made to address modern work-life integration challenges.
More specifically, it supports individuals and teams who are regularly asked to respond and deliver at a moment’s notice, wherever their desk may be.
Contemporary workaday reality has a cadence. These tools are designed to match that rhythm. They work, consistently, reliably, and intuitively. They look professional, surprise users with thoughtful features, and play nice together.
Design Development
The design language was purpose-built to compete in dynamic retail, e-commerce, and commercial channels.
It consolidates team learning from primary and secondary research, and iterative reviews with key stakeholders to fine tune how each product segment would respond to the demands on the NXT Technologies’ near-term and long-range roadmaps.
Design Language
Anthropologists say that “technology is simply a culture to be understood.” NXT Technologies expresses this understanding via a design language grounded in contemporary styling, iconic forms, and thoughtful aesthetic, engineering, and interaction choices.
At its foundation are Signature Elements that use product geometry, illumination, interior reveals, and exterior surface breaks to communicate recognizable product silhouettes across product segments in the category.
These principles are defined in practice for NXT via guidelines for six design elements:
- Forms: soft profiles for Mobile/Wearable offers; harder shapes Work/Conference rooms tools
- Interaction: dedicated interaction zones; acoustic/tactile cues; icon-led wayfinding
- Ergo: defines form geometries and finishes for enhancing workstation ergonomics
- Materials: CMF, pattern, and texture choices that control tactile friction and light reflectance
- Identity: confident applications based on clear space, sizing, inmolds, and gloss/matte breaks
- Graphics: simple, familiar pictograms and icons that guide and inform product use.
Takeaways
The simple, confident, and contemporary products that embody this initial framing of the NXT Technologies design language demonstrate the intention of this upstart brand to compete on performance, style, and price/value with leading brands across this category.
The intuitive physical grammar and WYSWIG interaction style of the products will earn NXT Technologies the respect of digital natives, reassure the technically hesitant, and build loyalty with both—product-to-product and over time.
