Malin Leschly, Logitech’s chief design officer, earned her chops on the {hardware} firm by working for a demanding set of consumers: Livestreamers. “Streamers wish to look good, they wish to sound good, they usually wish to have management over what they do,” she says.
Now, simply over half a 12 months into her function as Logitech’s CDO, Lechsley is exploring how the corporate can use AI to make life a bit simpler for content material creators. In September, Logitech, by means of its Streamlabs subsidiary, launched an “AI Sport Highlighter” that mechanically converts livestreams on Twitch into shorter clips that may be shared on platforms like YouTube, X and Instagram.
“It’s a chance the place we are able to see if AI might be useful,” she says. Streamers, for instance, take into account enhancing their content material to be “worse than schoolwork.”
Winding path
Leschly took over as Logitech’s chief design officer in April, changing Alastair Curtis, who’d spent a decade on the agency. The {hardware} firm has lengthy prided itself on its design focus, with former CEO Bracken Darrell talking brazenly concerning the design course of on the heart of the corporate.
The designer took a “winding path” to the {hardware} firm, she says. Leschly grew up in Sweden, the place “just about any expertise you have got is designed.” She arrived within the U.S. to attend enterprise college within the late Nineties. “California received its enamel in me,” she explains.
Leschly bounced round startups and design companies, together with a stint at design studio Non Object, which labored on the UE MEGABOOM, a bluetooth speaker whose design is now “extensively copied on virtually any Bluetooth speaker in the marketplace.” Leschly joined Logitech when the {hardware} producer acquired Non Object in 2018. “It wasn’t an enormous leap to maneuver from smaller corporations or a small studio to Logitech,” she remembers.
Logitech is now barreling into the AI pattern, integrating the brand new expertise into its many services. Earlier this 12 months, Logitech modified its laptop mice by including a devoted “AI Immediate Builder” button, which mechanically launches the generative AI program ChatGPT with preset prompts.
AI is a controversial expertise within the design area, as critics argue it rehashes previous concepts, reinforces present biases and, importantly, places people out of labor.
Leschly nevertheless sees AI as the newest in a protracted collection of instruments for designers, like Adobe Photoshop and Epic Video games’s Unreal Engine. Nonetheless, she agrees that overusing AI has dangers.
Design is “craft and creativity,” she says. “If AI is all about doing the identical factor over and over, there’s no creativity in that. There’s no optimistic, significant shock.”
“We will’t use AI in that approach,” she says.
‘Constraints into alternatives’
In 2023, Logitech pledged to incorporate on every product’s packaging the full carbon emissions generated over its lifespan. It’s a part of a sustainability push for the {hardware} firm, recognized for its peripherals ubiquitous in workplaces the world over.
Sustainability suits into Leschley’s design philosophy of attempting to show “constraints into alternatives.” For instance, Logitech’s Casa pop-up desk, launched final 12 months, makes use of round 80% recycled plastic in its touchpad and 60% in its keyboard. Each wi-fi peripherals are packaged with a laptop computer stand; Logitech pitches the mixed merchandise as a simple approach for customers to work from any floor within the residence.
“We decreased the carbon footprint of this product by greater than a 3rd,” she says.
Courtesy of Logitech
The Casa desk can also be notable in being derived, at the least partially, from the wants of Logitech’s prospects, significantly these in Asia. “Many individuals neither have the area nor the need to have a desk.” she says. “It was very true amongst girls. They needed to maneuver round of their houses.”
That’s not the one commentary Logitech’s drawing from its Asian customers. Leschly notes that youthful Asians are actually “blurring” work and play. The newest factor her workforce is noticing? Youthful workers are bringing their gaming keyboards into the workplace, fairly than counting on the usual cookie-cutter mannequin.
For these customers, a cushty keyboard is “like discovering your favourite sweater,” Leschly says. “They love the typing expertise!”
Fortune’s Brainstorm Design convention is returning on Dec. 5 on the MGM Cotai in Macau. Panelists and attendees will debate and talk about “Experiments in Expertise,” designs that blur the road between the bodily and digital worlds to captivate customers and foster lasting connections. Register right here!
