DI: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?
: ‘Design makes no wasted’ is the merit of Hylé Design Macau, we always believe every existence is born with specific value, even it is disuse. By adhering this philosophy we prioritize environmental protection in products development, we reuse the materials from wastes generated in manufacturing factories and give them new life through design, resulting to cut down the cost of new materials order and eventually economize the cost of manufacturing and create value for both manufacturers and customers. We believe our approach can appeal to more designers and public by recreating values for ‘wasted resources’, which are potential and valuable on both economy and innovation aspects.
DI: What made you design this particular type of work?
: CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera is an elegant and interactive product collaboratively made by Hylé Design Macau and Taiwan camera brand PaperShoot in 2016. CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera showcases the essence of traditional photography and modern inspiration, significant features cover interactive DIY process, simplification and capturing fun. Users can choose preferred outlook combination and enjoy the interactive process of building up their own shooting device. CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera simplified puzzling buttons into a 3 in1 (on/off/shoot) button and a switch for photo effects selection, besides thoughtful craftsmanship, all these features devote to bring users back to the very beginning of camera invention: recording and enjoying life.
DI: Who is the target customer for his design?
: Designer, Artist, Shutterbug, Electronic Fans
DI: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?
: CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera stands out from numerous products through its creative breakthrough as well as concise and environmental friendly ideas behind. There are four models, Premium, Vintage, Vanguard and Simple lightweight for users to choose, they can select the parts and making one exclusively for their own. The assembly process takes only 4 steps to complete. It is worth mentioning that Vanguard weighs only 48g which users can see the cool inner structures of the camera through transparent outer case, which cannot be found among other cameras. CROZ selects natural and environmental friendly materials such as wood, leather and brass, as time goes by the change on color and texture will be reflected on surfaces, subtlety showing users their interaction with the products after period of time in use.
DI: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?
: CROZ comes from “Cross”, Hylé Design devote itself to integrate various industries technology and advantages with the great potential of design, to make interesting and innovative products for customers.
DI: What is the most unique aspect of your design?
: Besides the whole DIY option, simplicity and interaction process, CROZ-D.I.Y digital camera comes with effect lens for users that want to explore more in photography. With different outlook styles (e.g., the retro wooden style; modern and stylish appearance), CROZ could definitely match users’ daily look and serve as a desired item to wear on. Instead of equipping with LCD screen, users will capture the images through the direct viewfinder. Romantic things of CROZ D.I.Y digital camera are users won’t need to check the photo results right away, all the unknowns will make one of a kind photos, unpredictability and expectation will be the most beautiful part they can experience and enjoy, and all these give ‘life’ to the pictures and memory. With CROZ users can revive the essence of photography: simply observing, capturing and recording the valuable moments.
DI: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?
: The most challenging part to create CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera is to break through the limitation and redefining the essence of capturing. High-techs take people into a fast-paced life, it is easy to take a photo and delete it right away; unintentionally we are ‘trapped’ inside of screen and have ignored all the details hidden behind living and nature. Thus, we are eager to create a unique product to lead users back to stage they can observe, rediscover the aesthetics, little details around them; and the product is so unique that they can decide every parts according to own preferences.
DI: Any other things you would like to cover that have not been covered in these questions?
: Innovation and user experience are always our consideration when doing design, CROZ-D.I.Y Digital Camera is an excellent combination of materials and technologies and at the same time redefining traditional shooting process. The users can have a whole new operating experience through self building up process, which the 'sense of participation' is greatly improved, meanwhile, the anticipation and excitement of expecting results can also be revived when each time the user presses down the shutter. Based on the great number of researching and positive feedbacks we are confident to develop more design experiments in the future and to bring in more interactive experience into products, eventually benefiting to both the team and users.