PowerMac G4 Cube - 2000

Trying to make a small, simple and essential product preoccupied us as we eliminated extraneous details and features – not just visual but auditory. Many of the design achievements in the Cube are therefore not obvious.

The Cube’s technological core is suspended in air by a single piece of plastic (we seldom design a product with one plastic part). Cool air enters the lower face and by convection travels through the internal heat sink or air duct. Movement within the Cube is vertical – the air, the circuit boards, even the CD is ejected vertically. The core can be easily removed for access to internal components.

Pro Mouse - 2000

We learnt from studies that the button on a mouse creates a target specifically defining how it is held and clicked. This limits the number of ways that users can hold a mouse and consequently limits comfortable use with a variety of hand sizes and methods of use.

By building multiple prototypes we developed the idea of making the entire surface the button. Allowing users to position their hands on the mouse naturally afforded different styles of use. Similarly, by rotating the dial around the optical sensor the user can adjust the force required to activate the click switch.

Analysing surface tension in liquid droplets helped us to develop a pure, essential form. A founding idea, however, can be undermined unless the ultimate implementation is based upon the same assumptions. By sharing the concerns and sensitivities of the original idea, we developed a construction to ultra-sonically weld the simple pure surface into the product assembly.

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