Nothing has a special relationship with its community, wanting to get fans involved at a much deeper level than the typical corporations that make modern smartphones. Six months ago, it went as far as inviting the community to design a special edition of the Nothing Phone (2a) (the final design ended up being based on the Plus version instead).
The process went through four stages and the winners of each stage got to work with the Nothing team to bring their concepts and ideas to life. Here is what they created – a glow-in-the-dark Nothing Phone (2a) Plus.
Stage 1, hardware design, was won by Astrid Vanhuyse and Kenta Akasaki, who worked with Nothing’s Design Director Adam Bates and
CMF Designer Lucy Birley. Fireflies were a core inspiration and lights are already a core design element for Nothing, it was a match made in heaven.
The designers point out that this is purely “analog”, as in it is not powered by electricity or even the phone itself but by daylight. Next up, Andrés Mateos won Stage 2 and delivered six bespoke wallpapers to match the look of the phone.
Community Edition: hardware design, wallpapers, packaging and promo campaign
Stage 3 winner Ian Henry Simmonds created brand new packaging for the special edition, while Stage 4 winner Sonya Palma dreamed up the marketing campaign – “Find your light. Capture your light.”
We have some good news and some bad news for the people who love the design of the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition and want to own one.
Good news first – the Community Edition is available across all markets where Nothing operates and this special model costs the same as the regular one, £399 / €449 / ₹29,999 / ¥55,800. Note: the models bound for Japan will be based on the regular Phone (2a), not the Plus. The units have 12GB of RAM and 256GB storage.
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition
Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition
Now, the bad news – only 1,000 units of the Nothing Phone (2a) Plus Community Edition will be produced. So, if you really want one, you should register interest over at nothing.tech before the start of open sales on November 12. If you wait too long, there might not be any units left.
Here is a short promo video that’s part of the promo campaign.
For a more in-depth look, watch this video instead. The Community Edition part starts at around the 9-minute mark. You get to meet the winners of the different stages and hear how they worked with the Nothing team to create a custom product based on their ideas.