L’École de design Nantes Atlantique

“I like the fact that the products tell a story and capture people’s imagination.” Arthur Senant, Head of Carrefour’s design department for electronic products in Hong Kong, created a simple laptop stand for the brand in the shape of a paper airplane. The stand is on sale throughout the world.

The aim was to “get into the growing market of laptop stands, with a Carrefour own-brand product which was good-value yet stylish.” Hence the playful shape, which resembles a piece of folded paper and evokes an office environment, childhood and lightness. This shape also causes light to hit the stand in such a way that it appears smooth and sleek. “It also had to blend in with the computer and its environment, and look timeless and durable.” Hence the choice of colour: grey. As Arthur explains, “the Carrefour brand is developing. It needs to reassure its customers with its new products, which must be both simple yet functional”.

Factors influencing the shape

“In order to guarantee its competitive price, it had to be manufactured using a single mold, with no assembly or electronic components – making the optimization of its functions a real challenge.” After carrying out a functional analysis, he was able to determine the optimum angle of inclination to ensure a comfortable typing position. Then he chose the ventilation zones for the computer processors, whilst maximizing the number of possible contact points between the stand and the user’s legs or cushion, which, as the use of laptops becomes increasingly mobile and recreational, is an important consideration. The size of the stand was also carefully studied to fit as many different laptops as possible. These factors governed the initial shape of the product, which was subsequently fine-tuned by Arthur. He also supervised the work on packaging, which was kept to an absolute minimum, "to limit the impact on the environment during transport".