Project Napoleon is a mini-ruler that allows users to draw precise lines. For as long as we’ve known Adobe, its focus has been strictly software. But that’s about to change come next year when the company releases its first set of hardware products that are aiming to make drawing and creating a digital, cloud-connected experience. Last week, Adobe announced that the two tools they revealed at Adobe Max in May would be available in the first half of 2014.
The devices, dubbed Project Mighty (a stylus), and Project Napoleon (a mini digital ruler), are basically 21st century updates to the traditional analog tools creatives have been using forever. The idea is to use these products to connect your digital identity to the growing suite of apps in Adobe’s Creative Cloud, allowing you to take your drawings and designs anywhere you go. “Really what this is about is there’s a whole new generation of creatives growing up in a new era, with new tools,” says Geoff Dowd, lead designer of the products. “We say tools define generations. I think Adobe would really like to own a tool and own a big part of that as we move into this next era.”
Though you’d assume a company like Adobe would exhaustively labor over their entrance into hardware (and they have in a sense), the tools were actually born out of a casual Friday afternoon brainstorm session. At the end of every week, Dowd and his group of designers would carve out some time to let their imaginations run wild. “My boss would say, ‘If you guys can come up with some solid ideas, we’ll pitch them,’” Dowd recalls. “And one of them was the Mighty.” Concerned that the basics of drawing were being lost on younger creatives, Dowd wanted to build a new set of tools for the digitally connected generation. “People think you can’t draw until you’ve mastered Illustrator,” he explains. “I don’t think that we’ve taught a whole generation that they can’t draw, but we might be close.”
Working with San Francisco design studio Ammunition Group, Dowd and his team designed the Mighty as a sleek, 3-sided twist pen that harkens back to the triangular rubber pencil grips kids slip over the wood to make it more comfortable. The lightweight stylus, which will be manufactured by Adonit, is pressure-sensitive so drawings turn out more realistic. And in a smart design move, a colored LED light at the base communicates with users, letting them know when they’re connected over Bluetooth LE or when the pen has completed an action, which Dowd hopes will become the industry standard for digital pens.
“Most pens out there are kind of nerdy so we got to say this is going to be a great pen, but it’s also going to be really sexy,” he says. “It’s going to be a design object. “ The original concept was a pen with a massive built-in memory—a glorified USB stick,” Dowd says—that would’ve allow users to carry actual files around with them. The design team quickly learned that type of device would require Wi-Fi and a big battery, which would instantly kill the mobility and sleek factor. “We realized we could really leverage the creative cloud and push things through there,” Dowd says. “This would be like your token.” A streamlined white hard cover doubles as a mobile charging station, which Dowd hopes will encourage users to carry the Mighty and a tablet around in the same way you’d carry a pen and notebook.
