Breaky – The fragile MP3 player

In the course ‘Visualization and Product Communication’, we was given an adjective which we were to design a MP3 player after. The adjectives included ‘sharp’, ‘soft’ and ‘fragile’, in which I was given the latter.

Inspired by fragile findings in nature and other products, like flamingos, wine-glasses, etc., I designed a MP3 player called Breaky.

Concept

Breaky is an innovative music player, designed with an all new approach in mind. The goal is to make a fragile shape, that is completely material independent. Unlike other established design directions, there are no guidelines or best practices within fragile design, so Breaky is inspired from a new definition of the word, and has drawn inspiration from natural and man made shapes like wine glasses, suspension bridges and flamingos.
The fragility in Breakys design is partly in its size of under 9 centimeters, at its longest stretch, and the apparent weakness the masses on the opposite side, of the already thin frame, creates.

Fragile interactions

The design is not the only part of this music player that has been aimed toward a fragile feel – also the interactions have been designed with that in mind. By not including all sorts of unneccersary functions, Breaky sports only the important functionality. On/off, play/pause, next and previous (fast forward), volume up and down.

By twisting, pushing, breaking, and pulling Breaky apart, this MP3 player introduces an all new type of gadget, that takes away the traditional ‘click-a-button’-interactions and brings more responsive interactions right between your finger tips.

Be careful – it might break!