Core77

Anyone who's been in the ID game for a while knows that even the simplest-looking objects often have entire teams behind their design. Such was the case with Sony's Digital Photo S-Frame, which had a team of four designers and a producer.

What do this many people do when the product is, in essence, a simple, shiny rectangle? Part of the manpower goes towards the planning:

We ultimately decided that because photos are the next best thing to memories themselves, we wanted our frames to be a way to revisit those moments and remember how you felt, instead of merely viewers for looking at digital photos. On a practical level, this involved a little ingenuity in the user interface, which offers clocks and calendars. “S-Frame” design thus stems from guidelines that integrate this user interface design nicely into the overall industrial design.

And then comes the nuts-and-bolts, designer-y stuff:

To keep the frames looking sleek, it would be critical to apply effective design.... We deliberately stretched the bezel outward, making the edge thinner, which asserts a sense of presence while slimming down the frame. The outer edge defining the frame is also narrow, and rounded. Ambient light captured along the edge further accentuates the frame's slender profile.

Read the entire interview here and see what went into the device. Afterwards, ask yourself: How much of this stuff would you notice as a consumer? And do you find you tend to notice more of the details as a product designer?