In fact, this story was written in 2017, but I was lucky enough to be appreciated by Puxiang Xiaobian. Ha ha, so I came here to send it ~

# About Product Story

This is a series of stories that I am going to spend my whole life telling, recording and sharing some things and some gains from my design project. Most of the time, what you learn and think of will always fade away and become blurred at any time. Thinking needs to be paraphrased in words to get deep into the heart, and thinking will be expanded by sharing and collision.

Of course, fate is so changeable that no one can guarantee that life will always be carried out in the way they wish. I wish I could be lucky enough to keep the story going. I will always write down every product story very attentively and truly to record and examine my design career, and hope to generate some value for its readers. Many years later, no matter whether I am still enthusiastic about design or not, it will be interesting to look back at this series of stories and relive the exploration and thinking I have done in my youngest time.

There are already six articles in the "Product Story" series. Those who are interested can go to my personal WeChat subscription number YoNoBi to read ~ ~

Let's start with a small animation of function demonstration ~ this is a multi-port charge with pins that can turn 90 degrees more than traditional products. The pins can be turned to the bottom of the product or to the side, so that the charging port of the charging head can be used upward or forward, which is suitable for more scenes.

After a slow operation for almost a week, it was finally finished. It was a small ending of the 2017. This is a product designed at the beginning of this year, and it is also a continuation of the design language of the self-contained mobile power supply issued last time.

This is the first product of my career that I have designed and successfully applied for a utility model patent. At that time, the project demand received was to design a charging head, which should be characterized, cheap and innovative, cheap and beautiful. Well, yes, it is such a simple requirement and such a familiar formula. Everything else uses its imagination.

# Thinking process

There are already thousands of products such as charging heads on the market. It is not easy to make some differences. It can be said to be racking their brains again, very painful. It is not impossible to start from the shape alone. It is just a simple shape. Unless it is gifted and painted as beautiful as everyone praises, you will always feel that it lacks basis and logic. With such endless shapes in the world, why did you choose this one? Yes, the boss or the demand side, they have to take risks. The success or failure of a product will affect the revenue of their company and the jobs of the employees up and down. They can't say that I think this is good-looking, I think this is very emotional, and then they choose. They must stand on their own market experience, business judgment, and use logic to choose the plan. Of course, it is very beautiful, which can certainly be a reason to choose the scheme. However, such things as beauty or not are subjective after all, and it is difficult to have a kind of beauty that can adapt to everyone. Therefore, it is usually difficult for simple appearance to be the final reason for the selected plan. Even if it depends on appearance, it should also have its internal logic, such as the following design, still hope to look at it patiently ~ ~

At the beginning of the project, it was also at sixes and sevens. Some of them could bind a data line, some had strange shapes, and some used various materials such as leather and fabric. In the end, they were all self-denied. Because it doesn't make sense, most of them only increase costs, but I don't want to pay for the so-called "newness" that I think about it carefully, or when I treat myself as a user. Therefore, it returned to the most essential demand of the charging head product itself.

What is the charging head? It is something that can charge electronic devices; what scenes will it appear in? Home, office, travel belt; Why does it need to charge the device? What port is needed, lightning?typeC?usb? Back to the source, first of all, the interface should be defined first. Communicate with the product manager to define the product. This charging head should also have English regulations, European regulations and other configurations. Then the question arises: can plugs applicable to different standards of various countries be realized in a modular way? Yes, this can become a direction of design, the theme of modularity! Then there is the usage scenario. This charging head is to take into account travel, so the volume should be as small as possible, and the pins must be foldable, so that it is not easy to scratch other things in the bag. However, the above are actually basic functions, which are necessary, but basic functions that everyone has done. They must be done well, but they may not become differences. The real difference of this product is its pin that can rotate at 180 degrees. How did you think of this foot? In fact, design sometimes really needs a flash of light, based on a lot of thinking after the flash of light. One day in the project, there is no result in hard thinking. In this case, I will get used to discussing the project with my colleagues and brainstorming to see if it is helpful. At this point, I saw that the desktop had a multi-port charging of Momishi's cow head (the charging port of the traditional charger is facing up, and the charging port of the multi-port charging of the desktop is facing forward), so I suddenly had the inspiration to make a charger that can face forward and upward, so that it can be applied to more scenes. Follow this line of thinking and then carefully diverge. There are other advantages to making holes facing forward. Data cables with broken ends are often seen in life. Most of them are easily damaged because the charging port is facing upward and the head of the data cable is subjected to the force of turning over for a long time. It would be better to make the charging port face forward, and when the desktop is used, the charging port face forward is also easier to use and easy to plug and unplug. So how to realize this? Can the charging port of the charging head rotate? Or? So, think about drawing on the sketch, and there is a plan that this pin can rotate 180 °.

# Design Language

When the train of thought is clear, then the modeling is actually a natural and natural thing. Basically, it is also a design that formally follows functional functions. The main feature is this split shape divided into two halves. The upper half is matte and the lower half is polished. Compared with the upper half fractal, it can achieve good results without painting. In order to strengthen the overall design sense, striped texture was added to the upper part. At that time, I especially liked this very orderly feature and the beauty of architecture. This is actually a continuation of the previous language of the mobile power supply, because it has been verified on that product that this texture has great visual effect and feel. Let's talk about the internal logic of the design language mentioned above. Why do you want to do this up-and-down modeling? This is based on the definition of structure and product. As mentioned earlier, this product may be made of English and European regulations in the later period. Their pins are different. Therefore, dividing the product into upper and lower parts can allow subsequent products to share an upper shell, and only need to replace the lower shell. Modular thinking can save a set of molds and make the whole product series have a unified design language.

The pit encountered
In fact, the development process of all products with structural innovation will basically not be smooth sailing. This structure was conceived by me, and then I took it for granted and simply built a schematic model and threw it to the engineer. Results As soon as the T0 sample of the mold came out, the problem came. When the pin is turned to the bottom, it needs enough strength to insert it into the row. The engineer wanted to use the spring with large force for granted. The pin can be relatively stable at the bottom. However, when the pin rotates in the groove of the shell, it can't be pulled out basically, and it needs to be pushed out. Obviously, such things cannot meet the requirements of a listed product! Can only be to change the structure, change the mold. After communicating with the project, their plan is to adjust the spring force. Yes, they said it was the only way. Oh, my God, lulu! Yes, many engineers, like many artists, just use software, just have experience, and make the structure in the traditional known way. They are not willing to use their brains to solve new problems. This solution will not work when you think about it. The spring will be adjusted loosely. At 90 degrees, the pins will definitely shake and there will be no hair plugged into the socket at all (as we all know, the socket has a safety baffle, and the plug needs force to plug in).

I couldn't accept this plan that day, so I went online to find many similar rotating structures, and finally found a key in the office that can be folded. There is a rotation limit structure on it. Through the concave and convex structure between the two components, the rotation action is turned to the limit, and it needs force to turn over, and it will be stuck without force. After communicating with the engineer again, the problem was finally solved. Finally, as demonstrated in the above video, the pin can be "snapped" at 90 and 180, and the pin can be easily pulled out of the groove. Only then can it finally become a product.

Is it so that it can be listed? Not really. This is a charging head, a product that requires strict safety regulations. At that time, the design was like the following figure. The safety regulations require that the metal distance between the charger pins and the shell should be 6mm (about this distance, I can't remember it clearly). Unexpectedly, because the pin of this product can turn 90 degrees more than the usual charging head, when the pin turns to the side, the distance from the lower edge cannot exceed the safety standard. Therefore, the structure can only be adjusted again. In the end, the two openings on the side are enlarged, and the rotating shaft inside the pin is lengthened, which solves this problem. Once again, the mold was changed to test the mold, the color surface details were adjusted, and the product was finally put on the shelf. The physical workmanship is good, the hand feeling is very solid, is a relatively satisfactory product ~

By the way, the following data line ~ last year's design, last year really did a lot of data line design. Later, I found that it matched this charging head quite well, so I also had this suit. The data line is designed with a long head and a hole. This is actually useful. Do you remember the problem that the data line is easy to break? This long open head is designed to protect the data line and avoid the broken head. The head is also designed with a groove feature, which is a little visual hint, suggesting that it is not easy to slide and feel when plugging and unplugging the data line. In fact, it doesn't have much effect haha, but it doesn't increase any cost, so such a design metaphor is possible.

How fast, 2017 will soon pass. This year, I have done a lot of things, many commercial projects, my own concept exercises, and bought a pile of books and basically read them. After design exercises, I recently found that vray has been used more smoothly and does not need much preparation to achieve a satisfactory effect at this stage. Under the experience of a large number of commercial mass production projects in Beisi (basically every project can witness the complete life cycle from its development to listing or even being discontinued), I also have some deeper understanding of the products. Really, now think about it. At that time, I was very lucky to be able to come to Beisi when I was confused and disorganized. Thank you ~

Dear friends, are you satisfied with your 2017? It will be another year's favorite New Year. What do I want to do? What I hope most is that 2018 I look back at this time, I will feel that these works are scum now.