Form and function: How the Sony Ericsson design team created the S700

12.10.04

Still a relatively young company, Sony Ericsson has gained worldwide recognition for its innovative approach to phone design and the S700 is set to further enhance its reputation as a design leader. How did the company achieve the remarkable balance of camera and phone in such a desirable and elegant device? We asked Hiroshi Nakaizumi, Corporate Vice President, Sony Ericsson Design Centre, about how his team rose to the challenge.

How did the S700 begin life?
The S700 has its roots in a camera phone we developed in Japan called the SO505i. This has a large colour screen that is perfect for the dual purpose of viewing content on a mobile device and as a very good LCD viewfinder. The task was how we produce a device with such a large screen that functions equally well as a phone and a digital camera.

Is that how you reached the idea of the swivel design?
Essentially, yes. With so many functions within one device, we needed to try something new. When the phone is folded, people can easily hold the device in one hand to view the screen and access functions using the softkeys. As a camera, it is about the same size as a conventional digital camera and is used horizontally with both hands. The swivel idea came about because we needed to incorporate a phone keypad. It doubles the length of the phone, and gives enough surface for a good sized key pad, making the phone sturdy to grip and comfortable to use.

How does the S700 differ from its Japanese predecessor?
We took the basic idea and developed it, with a new designer, to appeal to the more diverse GSM markets. The S700 has more functionality and is intended to appeal to a wide user base covering different regions and age ranges, from personal users to business people. So it had to be sleek, desirable and upscale.

Sony Ericsson has won many industry accolades for product design. What core principles come into play when you design a product such as the S700?
Our design philosophy sits on three main pillars. First, we always have the user in mind and make products that are comfortable to use. It is very important that products aren’t just created to make retail displays look beautiful – the product has to be loved when the owner takes it home and so they have to be functional. Second, we make products that appeal to the emotions, or what we describe as the sixth sense. Our products offer something desirable that their owners will feel attached to.


You could say that these first two philosophies represent the need to keep a balance between stimulating the left part of the brain, the logical side, and the right part, the emotional side. We achieve this by following the central principle that our products are pure in form and function.

Our third philosophy moves us forward. We need to be half a step ahead of the user at all times. If we produced products by studying today’s market, we would easily be left behind. As with all successful designers, our strength lies in forecasting what comes next.

Your design team is based in Sweden, the UK, the US and Japan. What core qualities do you look for in a designer, especially when the team is geographically diverse?
We cover the core disciplines of industrial design and human interface design. We also cover colour and material design as we take the look and feel of our finished products very seriously. In all of these disciplines however, the mindset of the designer is very important. Yes, you need to be able to dream up new products and functions, but you also need to be an end user yourself and have an instinct for what’s desirable and what’s necessary. You also need to be able to take yourself out of the organisation and look from the outside in.

In designing products, how do you determine what comes first – the technology or the style?
To answer this we have to return to our fundamental design philosophies. Essentially we are always thinking of new ways to communicate – voice is very important and SMS messaging has taken off big time in many markets and we are now seeing communication greatly enhanced by visual imagery which itself will bring many new possibilities. However, it is easy to become distracted or tempted by what the technology can offer, and to lose sight of the need to produce desirable products that are comfortable to use.

We are also speaking to an increasingly technology savvy marketplace, especially the younger generations for whom mobile technology is a living condition and is taken for granted. We therefore have to produce products that are desirable and that perform beyond expectations. So this is the point at which we keep to our central design philosophy and ensure that that form follows function in a very classical way.

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Hiroshi Nakaizumi, Corporate Vice President, Creative Design Center
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications

Hiroshi Nakaizumi is Corporate Vice President of Design at the Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Creative Design Center. He joined Sony Ericsson from Sony Corporation in October 2001 after his work in creating the joint venture’s corporate identity, the familiar green symbol. In his role as Head of design, Hiroshi manages design teams based globally. These teams cover industrial and human interface design as well as graphic, colour and material design.
Hiroshi’s professional association with Sony Corporation dates back two decades to 1983, when he joined the firm’s Tokyo-based PP center as a graphic designer in the Graphic Design Group. Since then, he has moved up quickly through the corporation, holding various design positions in the Tokyo, New York and New Jersey offices of Sony Electronics, Sony Corporation and Sony USA.
Throughout his career at Sony Corporation, Hiroshi was responsible for designing almost all Sony product packaging for the US market in the late 1980’s. His responsibilities expanded to include all internal and external design aspects of Sony’s products, as well as overseeing design communications and public relations activities for the design group. Hiroshi is a graduate of the Engineering Department of Chiba University, in Chiba, Japan.
ENDS
For more information about the S700, please visit: www.SonyEricsson.com/S700

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB serves the global communications market with innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories, PC-cards and M2M solutions. Established as a joint venture by Ericsson and Sony in 2001, with head quarters in London, the company employs 5,000 people worldwide, including R&D sites in Europe, Japan, China and America. For more information, please visit www.SonyEricsson.com