Kodak focuses on Hollington

London product design group Hollington has designed a new Advanced Photo System zoom camera for Kodak.

The Advantix T700 is designed to offer APS functionality, including the usual three picture formats, but with a different look and feel for the mass market. According to Hollington principal and creative lead Geoff Hollington, the consultancy’s brief was to avoid courting male technophiles, whom Kodak perceived to be the target purchasers of rival APS systems.

‘As soon as we had the workings on the table and a target cost for the project we went to work on the prototype,’ he says. This was a squarer model (pictured bottom) which was later modified to incorporate features such as the flip-up front, a Kodak motif.

Kodak was looking for a robust, weatherproof and pocket-sized design to meet the demands of its target customers: style-conscious holidaymakers and travellers of both sexes. Key to its functionality would be the ‘large, easy-to-use controls and clear electronic interfaces,’ continues Hollington.

He describes the finished product as a strong, ergonomic design which makes use of ‘unexpected’ materials and colours, such as its pale green, rubber shell developed with London consultancy Barron Gould. So too its format button, a bold, translucent green, the colour of which was inspired by a piece of glass from the beach.

‘The back and sides of the camera are covered with this rubber skin, which helps with the weatherproofing and also creates a distinct feel,’ Hollington adds.

Client: Kodak

Product design: Hollington – Geoff Hollington, David Townsend-Elliott, Chris Dolan, Tory Dunn, Richard Arnott, Andy Jones

Colouring: Barron Gould