Surface Texture - Issue 34
⌨️ Gaming kit for remote workers | ⚽️ Hot pink individualism | 🧱 Play without looking
Welcome to Surface Texture, the weekly newsletter covering product design trends and innovations for hardware designers, engineers, strategists, and entrepreneurs.
If you’re a new reader, you can read more about Surface Texture here! In a nutshell, we parse the hardware releases of the past week and deliver the top three product launches and why they matter to your inbox every Tuesday. Check out the archive to catch up on past issues of ST.
The products of Surface Texture, Issue 34:
⌨️ Razer, the gaming hardware manufacturer, dips into the home office market with help from Humanscale
⚽️ Mbappé debuted Nike’s Mercurial Superfly Rosa during Sunday’s Champion’s League Finals match
🧱 LEGO releases Braille-based bricks to promote tactile play and learning
Razer Pro Keyboard + Mouse
A few weeks ago, we noted the collaboration to re-launch Herman Miller office furniture with a refreshed visual identity brought in by Logitech. The result was an all-black, gamer aesthetic overlaid on premium office furniture. Interestingly, the opposite happened this week, with Razer, the gaming hardware manufacturer, announcing a collaboration with Humanscale to release a new line of productivity and ergonomics-focused computer peripherals in all-white.
Razer is well-known in for pioneering the “gamer” aesthetic: all-black everything, masculine branding, and RGB LEDs everywhere. With nearly three billion active gamers worldwide, the aggressive aesthetic doesn’t resonate with everyone — Razer has dabbled in marketing to a different gamer segment with their Quartz (pink) products, but never to a market segment outside the “gamer” label. The new Razer Pro series ditches the rainbow-unicorn lighting effects and embraces a more neutral color scheme:
…Herman Miller is trying to enter the gaming market, while Razer is trying to enter the office equipment market? Kind of. The core difference is Razer is trying to sell you the keyboard you use in your home office that has the capability of being used as a keyboard for gaming when you clock out. As more and more people are working from home and re-thinking their office set-up, Razer is betting more people will think of buying a Razer keyboard for work rather than having a work keyboard and a gaming keyboard (it’s easier to justify the expense of the “Razer Pro Type” vs “Razer Blackwidow”). There’s a lot of shared office gear between the gaming and office worlds — monitors, chairs, etc. — and we wonder if we’ll see more performance expectations that meet the demands of both, whether that’s “improved ergonomics” or “customized key bindings.”
One more thing — it’s worth recalling that the Playstation 5 is launching in white exclusively — maybe Razer is just ahead of the curve in defining the next gamer aesthetic.
Mbappé Mercurial Superfly Rosa
In advance of the UEFA Champion’s League final yesterday, Nike announced Kylian Mbappé, the world’s most valuable soccer player, would be debuting the Mercurial Superfly Rosa soccer cleats during the final.
Unfortunately, the Rosa’s had no effect on the outcome of the game, but they did enhance the crowd’s ability to easily identify Mbappé on the field. Frequently, the only source of individualism and creative expression when playing in a uniform, solid highlighter-bright shoes are becoming a big thing. This is especially true in the NBA post-season bubble, where offensive dominance is signified by the brightest shoes on the court.
See Donovan Mitchell’s 51pt game against the Denver Nuggets — its easy to make out the most dominant player on the floor. Or Damian Lillard upsetting Lebron’s Lakers with shots like these. “Just watch the guy with the brightest shoes” is becoming a rule of thumb.
The Mercurial Superfly Rosa inherits it’s pink from the bubblegum-shaped 2008 Mercurial Vapor Rosa, showcasing just how far Nike has advanced their knitting technology and design.
Everything about the Superfly Rosa’s is screaming for attention, from the molded metallic studs to the shifted, lightning-bolt Nike swoosh, but especially the pink.
LEGO Braille
This week, LEGO launched Braille Bricks, a system for teaching Braille through play. The specially molded bricks make use of the classic circular studs to represent letters in the Braille system — each letter has a 2 x 3 stud configuration, and letters (bricks) can be placed side-by-side on a build platform to spell out words. The system is thoughtful and exceptionally well-designed, allowing play for all children regardless of ability.
Braille is a dying means of communication for those visually-impaired, with only 1 in 10 even learning the system due to its complexity and replacement by technological solutions like text-to-speech. The Braille Bricks are somewhat limited as well, lining up letters together like you would with a magnetic alphabet on your refrigerator. It’s up for debate the true value of learning a dated mode of communication, but the Braille Bricks are interesting from other perspectives: the emphasis on tactile and diverse play.
LEGOs are inherently tactile — dependent on the physical interaction between components and consideration of their texture, size, and shape. In a world where apps and video games are constantly vying for a kid’s attention through extremely smooth and glossy devices, LEGOs are a refreshing return to the physical reality that surrounds us. Braille Bricks are a reminder of the physical sensations associated with construction. Vision is not required to have fun with LEGOs, whether you’re building houses, cars, or words. We’ve seen this encouragement to play across differences before, in products like the Xbox Adaptive Controller, but what’s really exciting about Braille Bricks is the emphasis on surface texture as a means of teaching a complex concept and conduit for inclusive play.
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