INVENTING iHOME
I’d been working at SDI Technologies for a little over a year, designing a variety of toys and electronics. I was happy to be there and the culture was very positive, but business wasn’t exactly booming and the work not particularly ground-breaking. I started to think about what was missing.
I SEE THREE CHALLENGES
Repeat/recycle: SDI’s products, as well as those of our competitors, were iterative. Consumers were not replacing their clock radios because manufacturers weren’t giving them a good reason.
Diminishing brand value: Timex, our main licence, was one of the best known brands in the world, but consumers were becoming more and more reluctant to pay premiums for a name plate. Big box retailers were learning that they could purchase market goods directly from China and sell them under a house brand at substantial savings.
Invisibility: Because of problems 1 and 2, foot traffic in the sections of the store where our products were displayed was shrinking, and more and more we found our planograms being relegated to the far corners of the store.
In short, nobody cared about SDI’s products anymore.
perchance, I buy an iPod
It was something new and magical. My iPod was a simplistic product at the time, but it was wonderful for music. My CDs suddenly became redundant.
I LOVE MY MUSIC AND I WANT IT EVERYWHERE.
The iPod was conceived as a private device, but I viewed it as a music source like any other. You should be able to use it beyond those white earbuds. I thought about the events and environments where music was most important to me. Then I thought about how I could satisfy them better.
A WAKE-UP CALL
Every day of my life begins with a song, it sets the tone for everything. Bad songs have ruined my day. Nine times out of ten, when my alarm went off, there was either a song I didn’t like, inane deejay chitchat, or an ad. CDs were better, but I didn’t get much variety since I was too lazy to switch discs. My iPod had the music I wanted. How could I wake up to it?
30 little pins
Was there a way to send a “play” command to the iPod though the connector on the bottom? We knew that there were 30 pins on said connector, and that some of them were for data, some for audio, and some for charging. What about commands? At the time, Apple had no resources to answer those questions. Nobody had tried anything like it. I started chatting with other iPod devotees online, and concluded that it just might be possible.
FINDING LANGUAGE
Here was an opportunity to cast off the legacy aesthetic that had defined SDI’s clock radios for so long. I went straight to the clean and purposeful products of Dieter Rams for inspiration. His designs for Braun meshed easily with what I considered the “Apple” look; Later I would learn that Johnny Ives’ (Apple’s head of industrial design) inspiration came from that very same place. I wanted a design that did not hide behind its aesthetic. I wanted a product that felt smart, simple, and honest.
WHAT FORM?
I began sketching without constraint. Having designed Timex products which had so much trade legacy, it felt liberating to color outside the lines. Nobody even knew that I was working on this.
I EXPLORE
I tightened up my best designs in Illustrator, where they could be tweaked and altered easily. At the same time, I started to think about the interface. SDI’s current offerings were overly detailed with generations of feature bloat and had become far too complicated to use. The new product would not be feature-rich in its first iteration, but I was determined to make it easy to use. At this stage I revealed my idea to the team and got full support to proceed.
SHAPE
Because my iPod was so precious to me, I gravitated toward shapes that cradled it, lending a comforting and protective feel. The design I ultimately chose was based on the idea of one extrusion being cut by another, the resulting intersection forming the docking area. Volume and tuning would be performed with wheels, an homage to the iPod interface. Buttons were clearly marked, with no hidden functions.
SOUND
Although I originally wanted side-firing speakers, some of our retailers felt that if a product sounds good, it should communicate that fact with front-firing speakers. I still feel that the product looked better in the previous iteration, but the change paid dividends down the line. A frontal configuration allowed for speakers with larger magnets, longer ports, and more ideal speaker chamber dimensions.
THE BRANDING QUESTION
By late 2004, development of our iPod clock radio was nearly complete; we had working prototypes circulating with our salespeople and initial reactions were extremely good. The product was unique in purpose, had excellent sound quality, and possessed a clean, easy-to-like appearance. The biggest remaining challenge was what name to put on the product. As a prolific licensor, SDI Technologies had a variety of brands available for use, but I wondered if now was a good opportunity to craft a new identity.
I NAMESTORM
This would be the first time that SDI had created a brand from scratch in over 20 years, so it was crucial to get it just right. I started to jot down names that exemplified qualities the brand should communicate. It was natural to gravitate towards names beginning with “i”, since they created a strong connection to the Apple ecosystem.
A SIMPLE BRAND
We conducted a series of focus groups and “iHome” quickly emerged as a favorite. It felt comforting and approachable. It was easy to remember and it definitely gave off an Apple aura. My only concern was that “iHome” would limit us to products strictly for home use, (which became something of a branding problem down the road). We could not anticipate how expansive the brand would become. In retrospect, it was exactly the right name. In fact, by 2006, Apple had attempted to buy the name from us twice.
THE GRAPHIC QUESTION
I began with a minimal logotype. My favorite was the “iH” graphic: it was versatile, it scaled well, and it aligned with our only product at the time, the iH5. The problem was that the logo didn’t actually say “iHome,” thus it would take a great deal of publicity and brand awareness for people to make the necessary association. My typographical logo was considerably stronger. Based on House Industries’ Chalet 1970 font, with a modified iconic “i” and negative kerning, the logo conveyed a friendly-yet-professional image. And so the iHome brand was born.
Four years later, when we began designing our first iHome-branded iPhone application, the original “iH” logo found a new use. With widespread brand awareness, we began using “iH” on some products in place of the “iHome” logo.
THIS IS IT
The iHome iH5 premiered during the 2005 holiday season at Target, followed shortly thereafter at The Apple Store. The product was an immediate and huge success, with sales more than 500 percent better than forecasted. By spring, nearly every major retailer in the United States was carrying it and we sold our millionth unit in less than a year, making it the best selling product in SDI’s fifty-year history. The early success of the iH5 allowed iHome to become a leader in the emerging segment of iPod speakers. Today, iHome sells more units than its three largest competitors combined, and their diverse range of products from $20 to $300 is available worldwide. In 2011, SDI sold its 30 millionth iHome and sales show no sign of slowing.
All things considered, I’m so glad I bought that iPod.