Project:
Tangital music player, was my individual bachelor project I did in the third year of my bachelor education. The product is founded on the trend that music is becoming more and more digital, and thus invisible in the physical sense. This might not seem like a problem, but physical music turns out to be a medium which easily attaches memories and emotions. In order to combine the advantages of digital music and the richness of physical interaction I’ve designed the Tangital music player.

Team:
This project was totally individual, since the third year of the industrial design education is about developing your identity.

Date:
This 5 month project was completed in June 2006.

Results:
After having done extensive research into the trends on digital music, as well as user questionnaires to get statistics, I started my design process. I found artwork an imortant feature in music, since it’s very recognizable and it’s also the part of physical music people tend to pay money for, rather than the physical CD or DVD itself. So I researched different ways of displaying artwork, or graphics while at the same time carrying or resembling the music. The end result is a modular music player, with a music label printer, music label reader and a speaker module. With these three modules users are able to make their own custom music labels. These music labels can represent any kind of music, like an album, playlist, artists, radiostation or even an RSS feed. The technology behind it RFID, which can be easily embedded in paper music labels. Since the system is modular, the user can choose to buy only the reader, and use their own desktop printer and Hi-Fi speaker set. The first visual shows a music label display in the modern minimalistic home.

You can probably imagine that such a display will evoke interaction more easily than a computer with a list of thousands of poorly organized songs, since the computer remains personal domain, which throws up another barrier for emotional attachment with music from your friends or family. The next visual shows the speaker I used in my custom build speaker unit, the speaker is powered by a 12V battery, and has a built in amplifier.

During my design process I’ve also used different techniques of visualizing my ideas, by sketching and rendering different concepts. The next rendering shows the music label reader unit, which is the essential part of the product, it also houses the 5 button controls, as well as the display for augmented feedback.

The following movie shows a fly by view of the product before it was finished, and the colour is that of lasered wood without any finish.

I end this project with a short movie, it shows the printer in the process of printing a custom designed music label, after which the user places the music label on the player and interacts with it.

For more information about this project, or a demonstration please refer to the contact section of this website.