Tag Archives: Layer Design

LAYER Design’s lifestyle-focused Viture One smart glasses have form, function and ergonomic comfort in perfect sync

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The Viture One smart glasses carry minimalism at their core, keeping in mind the latest trends and not sacrificing technology inclusion for a great user experience without all the discomfort or bulkiness that’s akin to VR headsets.

As we look forward to roaming in the metaverse (and who knows spending our complete life in VR) in the near future, the tools are going to be as important as the whole experience. Take VR headsets and smart glasses for example. While the former has a big issue with long-term use fatigue and lack of overall practical usage, the latter is the only hope if the masses have to be lured in. Layer Design wants to strike gold with its Viture smart glasses to make you ditch smart TVs, laptops, and even the smartphone for good.

Designer: Layer Design

This fashionable set of sunglasses is as good as any other high-tech pair of shades on the market. The frames by the design house weigh just 78 grams, shedding most of the extra fluff and managing to achieve an ultra-slim form factor. Something that you would want to wear every day, just like your normal glasses. These ones, however, give you the freedom to jump right into your favorite movies, games (even from consoles like PlayStation 5), or action series anywhere, anytime.

The lenses in front of the eyes display a cinematic 120-inch virtual screen (at 60fps and 55 pixels per degree) even on the brightest of days. The virtual screen gets 400 pixels per inch on a retina display which is very impressive considering we are talking about thin glass lenses here. The glasses are paired to a collar-like neckband housing the powerful CPU, GPU, battery pack, and intuitive controls. So, we are talking about fully immersive gaming and media streaming capabilities here. And yes, if you thought, what about the audio experience? Well, the smart glasses have ear-facing speakers located around the temple area.

Keeping ergonomics in mind, the lightweight eyewear comes with an interchangeable nose bridge to fit any facial structure like a charm. Even better, the display can be toggled to adjust the position for people with short-sighted vision. Viture One manages to achieve a very good balance between style and tech which will ultimately translate into an increased userbase. As per Layer Design founder Benjamin Hubert, “In creating Viture One, we wanted to deliver the antithesis of this trend. The result is a product that is more lifestyle led, akin to the traditional eyewear you would wear proudly as part of your fashion expression.”

The post LAYER Design’s lifestyle-focused Viture One smart glasses have form, function and ergonomic comfort in perfect sync first appeared on Yanko Design.

Layer Design’s meditation headset uses biomorphic patterns to elevate your state-of-mind

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While most of us are stressed out the whole day, a tech-infused meditation headset to wind down is a liberation we all could do very well with.

Life has become stressful in modern times with deadlines and other human-induced factors pushing us to the limit of physiological and psychological turmoil. Meditation is one thing that liberates one from the cyclical patterns of daily struggles – infusing a new sense of excitement to experience life to the fullest. When meditation is aided by the sensory input it’s bliss for the pineal gland!

Layer Design has once again demonstrated its knack for winning creations with the LightVision meditation headset designed for US-based tech startup Resonate. The headset is an array of LED lights that create a layer of magic to the visual feed for the user – literally turning the natural videos being cast into a sequence of biomorphic patterns. Amazingly, these patterns are visible to the closed eyes as the ever-changing kaleidoscope of sequences creates a sensory input. This triggers the brain’s “frequency-following response” according to Layer Design.

The minimally designed headset wrapped in textile casing sets a new precedence for the meditation regimes – be it in the morning or while winding down in the night. The ergonomic form of the headset sits comfortably around the face and the eyes for a distraction-free restful state of mind. The latter as you know is very hard to achieve since the mind wanders into realms you otherwise don’t want it to. The whole design of the LightVision headset puts forth a tactile experience to take your meditation routine to the next level.

While one question still lingers on my mind – won’t the play of light and colors for a long duration or even on a daily basis tire the eyes? Won’t it juxtapose with the very calm state of mind that it wants to achieve in the first place? If Layer Design has those issues sorted out, this headset for Resonate could be the catalyst the stressed-out world needs!

Designer: Layer Design for Resonate

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The biggest problem with smart-speakers is that they’re voices without faces – LAYER’s Capsula Mini fixes that

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Filling a rather strangely-ignored UX gap with the smart-speaker market, LAYER Design’s smart-speaker for Russia-based Mail.ru comes with its own expressive little face that reacts as it listens and speaks. Titled the Capsula Mini, the smart speaker runs Mail.ru’s native voice AI – Marusya, while assuming the friendly avatar of a little AI butler that’s ready to answer all your requests.

The speaker takes on the familiar puck-like shape seen with other mini smart-speakers like the Amazon Echo Dot or the Apple HomePod Mini. It sports a fabric clad around the sides where you’d expect the speakers to fire audio out of, and a set of LED eyes shine right through the fabric. The speaker uses a seven-segment LED display for each eye (and a single dot for the nose), allowing it to express emotions like happiness, sadness, nonchalance, and surprise, while also doubling as a clock that displays the time. A touch-sensitive surface on the top lets you physically interact with the Capsula Mini, while an LED ring underneath its touch panel lights up when the speaker’s active (and turns to red when there’s an error).

The voice and touch-activated speaker hopes to do something rather new by associating a face with the speaker’s voice. Given how our visual sense plays such a dominant role in our perception of everything from events to emotions, it makes sense, being able to associate a face with the voice – after all, video chats are so much better than audio calls, no? Capsula Mini’s eyes and nose also pull off the ‘serious’ veneer associated with gadgets that end up scaring people who are tech-phobic or don’t know how to use certain tech appliances – like children or the elderly. The fact that Capsula Mini has a face and a voice anthropomorphizes it, making it much more approachable, especially to people who aren’t tech-savvy.

The smart-speaker will be available to Russian users in two color variants – ‘Dove Grey’ and ‘Charcoal’, with more colors in the future.

Designer: LAYER Design for Mail.ru

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Layer Design teams up with Nga Nguyen to create wellness products, including a reusable mask!

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2020 saw a radical shift in the basic thought process when it comes to daily life challenges – maintaining hygiene at all times, being one of them. With so much emphasis on personal well-being and the need to stay clear of harm’s way, the radical shift in how the design and fashion industry operates has also been there. That’s the reason why London-based LAYER Design founded by Benjamin Hubert has joined forces with fashion’s patient zero, Nga Nguyen, to create a range of products for her health and wellness startup Never Go Alone. Creative minds in both the creative houses worked in collaboration for a year to meticulously craft the protective products, their packaging, branding, and the art direction.

The range of products tailored for the ‘new normal’ is understandably centered around personal hygiene, and are going to be launched in the UK in Spring 2021 with a global release following soon after that. The collection for starters is going to have a reusable mask, refillable hand sanitizer, and a refillable sanitizing wipes case. The one to focus on here is the reusable mask dubbed ‘Behind the Mask’ that’s designed keeping in mind convenience and safety at all times. And yes, it is inspired by the visual language of ‘athleisure’ – making it ideal for people who are always on the move. The studio explains, “Never Go Alone is a wellness brand that was founded during the COVID-19 pandemic and empowers users to live and travel responsibly in times of unprecedented change. LAYER designed each product to create a memorable experience through the engagement of the senses, from tactile materiality and intuitive touchpoints to bespoke scents.”

The outer layer of the mask is made from lightweight knitted fabric for high breathability, and it also conceals the bespoke PM2.5 filter that’s replaceable. Its diamond shape perfectly takes the shape of the facial contours without any discomfort. So that you don’t ever get bored of the Behind the Mask, it comes with modular interchangeable earloops for changing the color and style to personal preference.

Designer: Layer Design

These cinema-seats were designed to isolate movie-goers in a post COVID world

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Together, the screen and seat create an immersive/isolated environment that actually makes the movie experience better + safer.

London-based design studio LAYER has debuted a new kind of movie-theater seat titled ‘Sequel’ to mark the second, renewed era of film born as a result of the coronavirus. The virus has arguably crippled travel and entertainment the hardest, and LAYER’s design efforts seem to be rectifying the various inherent problems within these two areas. The Sequel seat was designed as a direct response to the coronavirus crippling movie-theaters and their enclosed, highly-packed spaces. The Sequel seats boast of a unique set of features, designed to make movie-going safer. The seats, made to be modular, come with partitions, storage space for your belongings, and self-sanitizing seat fabric in an effort to make it safer for patrons.

Unlike conventional theater-seats, Layer’s fully-adjustable seating modules are placed slightly further apart, with a frosted partition separating individuals. The seats are relatively slimmer than most plush cinema-sofas, but boast of the same level of comfort, thanks to advancements Layer’s made in seating design for its other projects – notably seating for the Airbus planes. The slim, spaced-apart design creates ample room between seats to store items like bags. These individual chambers come with UV-C lamps too, helping keep your belongings sterile.

Other pretty remarkable features include LED panels built into the headrests that allow each seat to flash the patron’s name and seat number, preventing mix-ups in the theater. Once you find your seat and make yourself comfortable, integrated speakers give you an immersive experience, making you feel like you’re right near the action. Flat, easy-to-clean trays let you munch on popcorn while you’re watching the movie too. Once you’re done, the seats auto-disinfect themselves, thanks to the use of an anti-microbial fabric that has copper strands woven into it. The seats are hydrophobic and stain-repelling too, making them much easier to maintain. This allows theater-staff to quickly clean the theaters and set them up for the next show.

Designer: LAYER Design (Benjamin Hubert)

LAYER Design’s flexible chair is based on human psychology and sports

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Being in the house all the time, many of us are on Pinterest making mood boards of furniture we wished we had! On that board is my all-time favorite studio, LAYER Design, who has unveiled a chair called Membrane which I want for two reasons – 1) a change of scenery in my home so I can have something new to chill on and 2) because it is a beautifully crafted product that works for a flexible lifestyle. The current times have taught us a lot, and one of those things is choosing products that are highly functional in various situational settings.

The Membrane has been described as a highly engineered, ultra-lightweight chair that resonates with the flexible needs of future homes which truly shows in the details of its build. Its form and function were based on qualitative research from the sports industry and combined with minimal visuals which resulted in this sustainable chair. The assembly is simple – there are 8 supporting tubes with 2 ring-like tubes that form the structure of the chair. You then pull the stretchy, cushioned fabric over the assembled skeleton and that’s it, that is your chair. If you move houses or want to carry it out for camping, you can just fold the fabric and collect the short tubes to set it up wherever you like.

“We deliver technically demanding solutions that respond meaningfully to human behavioral trends,” says the team. The chair is portable, modern and based on a design strategy that accounts for emotion as strongly as functional needs. The materials used give it an airy appeal unlike the bulky furniture we are used to, it truly lightens (see what I did there?) up the room. LAYER Design wanted to create a chair that was innovative with its material use but also based on the ever-changing human needs and they have delivered it with Membrane.

Designer: LAYER Design

Layer Design’s feline-friendly furniture is every cat lover’s delight!

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Once upon a time, I would proudly call myself a dog person. Not just a dog person, but an anti-cat person, as I never quite understood the appeal of having a cat, until I got two of them as my cats-in-law! Cats are smart intelligent companions and as per studies, roughly 42.7 million people are cat-owners in the USA alone, with the millennials owning up a huge chunk of them. Frankly, that does make sense to me. The world is getting smaller yet people are more lonely each day, with these furry pals coming to their rescue! So yes, cats are adorable and we will do almost anything to make these felines love us back. Keeping in mind our wish to give only the best for our cats, LAYER Design by Benjamin Hubert has created products for the New York-based start-up Cat Person, an entire brand dedicated to bringing cat-friendly furniture for every cat lover!

Starting with the absolute basics, Cat Person brings you two innovative designs to make you and your cat happy! Meet Canopy Bed, a unique 3-in-1 design that makes life easier for your cat and you. The Canopy Bed comes with a playful and colorful base that is easy to show off for the cat owner, matching with today’s modern interiors. But the real show-stealer is the detachable canopy – you can remove it, fold it to create a soft wall or if your pet is feeling shy or wants their own space, the canopy literally forms a tent above their head! This multipurpose design allows each cat owner and cat to experiment with different settings using the same product and change things as needed. After all, we all know how moody the human can be! The detachable form of the canopy also makes it easier to clean and folds flat for storage. LAYER’s design experience shines through here in their use of soft geometric forms in colorful variants that invite cats and their owners alike.

The second product launched in this range is the Mesa Bowl – a modular feeding station that ensures your cat need not bend uncomfortably to access their food. The focus here is on the modularity of the product. The brand believes each cat has its own style and the Mesa Bowl is designed to allow you to work the product to suit your cat. The Mesa Bowl consists of three parts – the main bowl to hold the food, a sculptural stand that elevates the food for your cat and a tray that holds the entire piece together as well as catching any accidental spills. Every individual piece is made using durable non-BPA plastic and the shallow nature of the bowl accommodates the cat’s facial profile, letting them eat without agitating their whiskers and keeping them free of “whisker fatigue”.

From the time you get a little kitten into your home and hearts till they turn into the cat that will ultimately rule your heart, both of these products are designed to grow with your cats. These products form the basis of your connection with your cat, from playful, colorful designs to modularity, LAYER’s attention to detail will make this exciting journey comfortable for you as you both find your way. What more can the human ask for!

Designer: LAYER Design for Cat Person

The Canopy Bed

Canopy Bed is a simple yet inspired 3-in-1 cat bed that responds to feline behaviors. Most cats will sleep up to 17 hours each day, with kittens and older cats napping for even longer.

Canopy Bed

Canopy Bed is made from a durable recycled PET felt material and can be adapted to different napping situation throughout the day.

There are three options for configuration of the canopy to fit a cat’s mood – whether they want to hide away, feel protected, or lounge openly.

The circular footprint of the memory foam cushion snugly accommodates the naturally curved sleeping position of a cat, and the durable felted PET material can withstand cat “kneading” and scratching behavior.

Canopy Bed is available in three different colorways: Jungle, Tundra, and Savanna.

The Mesa Bowl

Mesa Bowl is a modular cat feeding station that offers a comfortable setting for cats to feed from, celebrating their uniquely feline character.

Mesa Bowl

The rounded bowl, made from durable non-BPA plastic, sits atop a sculptural stand, avoiding the need for cats to crouch or hunch.

The elegant arrangement of the food bowl and stand takes its design cues from premium homewares, offering an easy-to-clean and durable product that cat persons are proud to display in their homes.

The feeding station “grows” with the cat as the bowl can be used directly on the tray for a kitten or on the stand for adult cats.

Mesa Bowl is available in three colourways: Jungle, Tundra, and Savanna.

“With Cat Person, we saw an opportunity to disrupt a market underserved by good design with a collection of products to connect with a new generation of cat owners. The collection is based on extensive research into cat and cat owner behaviors to find new insights that have driven innovative features. The resulting collection not only meets the specific needs of domestic cats, but also seamlessly integrates into the home life of owners and offers an opportunity for them to celebrate their feline friends.” says Benjamin Hubert, Founder LAYER.

Newly released LAYER x Bang & Olufsen speaker is a smart design for serious audiophiles!

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I love the sound of a deep voice belting out the blues to help me unwind at the end of a day. However, for me, trouble with traditional speaker designs is that they either aim to conquer the sound design or they focus on the aesthetic of the speaker. To balance them both, to use the form of the speaker’s body to uplift your home while delivering rich, soul-warming sounds that touch the core of your being, that is what the latest collaboration between Benjamin Hubert’s LAYER Design and Bang & Olufsen brings to us!

Named the Beosound Balance, this powerful compact speaker encompasses luxury in every bit of its design. This can be seen especially in the choice of materials used by the designers – natural oak wood base complemented by a subtle metallic finish and a knitted fabric wrapping the speaker that ties it all together… this speaker comes with a truly serious sound (that is what we hear!). Hidden in its homely aesthetics, the speaker packs a digital punch with a hidden touch interface to manually control the speaker settings. The interface lights up when approached, inviting the user to come and interact with the speaker. Whereas the touch-sensitive top plate uses a swipe gesture to control volume and change other player settings. Adding to the home-assistant aesthetics, the speaker’s light dims out when the user moves away from it. And here is the tweak that shows off Bang & Olufsen’s sound skills, this dimming happens owing to an internal microphone that hears you and also, during the speaker’s initial setup analyzes the room and creates a set of ‘filters’ that will compensate for the walls and other sound-reflecting surfaces in your space, ensuring the speaker’s personalized output gives you the best experience in your surroundings.

Designer: Benjamin Hubert of LAYER Design with Bang & Olufsen

The Design Details

In terms of the design, the speaker separates into two parts: the cylindrical wooden base that houses a large subwoofer that faces upwards.

This distinction allows the sound filtered through the metal disc to be reflected by the rounded base of the top section. To complement the same, the upper section of the speaker houses a downward-facing bass driver, three mid-range speakers, and two tweeters, giving you a total of seven drivers to pack a powerhouse sound performance.

Smart Speaker Capabilities

With Google Chromecast, Apple Airplay, Spotify Connect, and Amazon Alexa voice control, this minimal design is equipped for the modern era.

Even better, the Beosound connects with your existing B&O products to create a surround sound or multi-room setup.

Designed for audiophiles who want an all-in-one speaker

Designed for serious audiophiles who want uncompromised sound quality encased in a design worthy of showing off in their home, this speaker comes at a whopping price of $2250 to be available in two variations – Natural Oak and Black Oak.

But, if what you crave is some serious sound quality to answer your Google and Alexa queries, this speaker is the answer to your prayers!

This article was sent to us using the ‘Submit A Design’ feature.

We encourage designers/students/studios to send in their projects to be featured on Yanko Design!

Layer Design’s Joyn ride-sharing concept lets you choose between private and public transportation

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The great thing about public transport is that it’s cheap and eco-friendly. The not-so-great thing about it is the word ‘public’. Unless you’re with company, transportation is all about keeping to oneself, whether it’s listening to music, browsing the internet, playing a game, working, or catching some crucial shut-eye. LAYER Design’s Joyn brings privacy to public transportation, more popularly known today as ‘ride-sharing’. Pulling inspiration from airplane-style seating (an area LAYER has worked extensively in before with Airbus), Joyn reimagines seating in an autonomous ridesharing vehicle by creating an intersection between a private and public riding experience.

By providing a private experience in a public ridesharing vehicle, Joyn alleviates “eco-guilt”, better described as the feeling of guilt as you book a single-passenger ride so as to get some privacy. With its unique S-shaped seating system, Joyn gives each rider a private cabin that they can either enjoy their solitude in, or socialize with a fellow-passenger by simply swinging a privacy-wing aside to have a face-to-face conversation with the person beside you… an alternation that LAYER terms as choosing between ‘bubble seating’ and ‘buddy seating’.

Each individual cabin within the Joyn is inspired by an airplane seat. The seats don’t recline, but rather, exude a sense of comfort and calm, thanks to the use of soft forms, calming pastel colors, and plush textile upholstery. The side of the cabin (facing outwards) is an interactive OLED smart-glass that provides rider-specific information about their commute. There’s even a two-part foldout table in front that’s great for keeping your belongings. The table folds out in two parts, one being a primary rest for laptop, or for food, while the other is a mat that you can either rest your phone on to charge it (via a built-in USB port), or prop it up to rest your tablet on at an angle so you can enjoy movies, get work done, or even have meetings and conference calls while commuting.

Designer: LAYER Design

Layer Design and Airbus bring the ‘class’ back to economy class

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The bane of air-travel, aside from noisy children and overpriced peanuts of course, is the fact that you’re stuck in an uncomfortable chair with practically no cushioning and hardly any leg-room. The economy class of an airplane is designed to be just that… economical. It sacrifices comfort, the need of personal space, and probably even its share of functionality just to make sure it can host as many passengers on the plane. We justify this mild discomfort because “it’s only for a few hours, right?”

In collaboration with Airbus, Benjamin Hubert of LAYER Design has developed what may just be the future of the economy class. An 18-month long project, Hubert’s transformed the very idea of the economy class without compromising on the quantitative nature of economical travel. Introducing smart fabrics that fit futuristic possibilities into a single sheet of cloth, and a thin, strong frame that holds everything together (along with a pretty remarkable tray system), Hubert and Airbus’s design, titled ‘Move’, allows seating to remain thin yet comfortable, and even makes accommodations for entertainment, storage, and even the so-far-unsolvable problem of legroom. The result is seating that occupies less space, but doesn’t let that be perceived as a con. It makes up for everything with top-notch design, engineering, and technology, allowing the economical class to feel classy.

THE SEAT – MATERIAL

The Move employs a smart textile seat cover (polyester wool blend – for heat regulation, robustness, and tactility – with integrated conductive yarn) that’s mounted on a robust aircraft grade aluminium and carbon fibre frame. “The knitted seat cover has zones of various density knit that offer different levels of support to the body. Throughout the journey, the Move seat automatically adjusts based on passenger weight, size, and movement to maintain optimal ergonomic comfort”, says Hubert. “This is made possible by passing current through the conductive yarn to vary the seat tension. The passenger can make additional adjustments to the seat based on personal preference using the Move app. The Move app can also be used to engage different seat modes, such as ‘massage’, ‘mealtime’, or ‘sleep’.”

THE SEAT – COMFORT

With a set fabric that can change density, flexibility, and even temperature, the Move doesn’t need to worry about integrating foam panels for cushioning, and even ditches the reclining mechanism. The reclining mechanism helps chairs feel more relaxing by changing one’s posture. However, a posture change also results in the eternal legroom problem. “The position of the seat is fixed – which addresses the issue of ‘legroom rage’ caused by passengers unnecessarily reclining on shorter flights”- instead, the chair’s fabric possesses the ability to learn from your posture, build, and body temperature, helping you sit in a way that feels comfortable to you. This could mean heating the chair up or cooling it down… or even tightening the fabric near the kidneys for greater lumbar support, or relaxing the overall textile for a more hammock-like feel.

THE TRAY TABLE + STORAGE

The Move also integrates a display and tray unit on the back of each seat. The display unit delivers key information, and even comes with an optional In Flight Entertainment module that can fit in its place. The tray unit combines functionalities too, serving as an emergency exit map when closed, and a fully height-adjustable tray when opened out. Right under it is a pocket to store your belongings, and the Move even comes with a sleeve to store laptops and tablets underneath the seats (between individual chairs). The laptop sleeves come made with a pressure sensitive yarn too, reminding you to collect your belongings while deboarding the plane.

DESIGN DETAILS

Move’s design is quite a departure from the usual defensive design of economical class seating which sort of acts as a psychological reminder that the Business Class is better and more desirable. Hubert uses a beautiful gradiented fabric to make the plane’s interiors more eye-catching, feeling more like a theater and less like the waiting room at an ER. Height adjustable armrests let you go from compartmentalized to bench-style seating, and the headrests even curve inwards, providing a great pillow to rest your head against, while also allowing you to get that private, cocooned feeling. My favorite detail is the fact that they even come with the seat number embroidered/printed directly on the headrest so you’ll never find yourself struggling to locate your seat by constantly holding up your boarding pass to double check for your spot! And it does all this without altering or tinkering with the orientation or the layout of seats, but rather just upgrading the seat as a singular unit.

Designers: Benjamin Hubert (LAYER) & Airbus.