Google’s Pixel smartphone lineup stands out for more than a few reasons, whether it’s the clean Android user experience, useful extra features or the great value pricing. But, if you were to ask us to distil the appeal down to two key elements, we’d say “photography” and “design” before anything else.
With that in mind, it was no surprise to hear Claude Zellweger, Google’s Pixel Design Director – and the mind behind the look and feel of all the latest Google Pixel products – start Digital Spy‘s in-depth conversation ahead of Made By Google 2024 by saying that “photography has always been at the centre of what we do”.
On the one hand, everything that Google’s just unveiled looks even more distinct and different than ever, but it’s also evidently a gradual shift and evolution, something that’s especially clear when you have every generation of Google Pixel phone laid out before you as we did for our interview.
How much is consistency and continuity a focus for you in this design?
The strong horizontal bar is what we’ve developed into our kidney grilles. Like BMW’s ‘kidney grilles’ they’re our signature element that really goes back to the camera performance. We’re continuing this, but we’re also making quite a significant step forward in terms of it feeling more modern, more purposeful and reflecting the pride we have in photography.
The inspiration for us for this design language has been to look at things like high-end photography and the way that lenses use a lot of this sort of polish matte back-and-forth finishes that you also find on watches — this is much more refined and toned down here where the polish is only on the sidewall and the band. Contrast that with the matte back, and you get this really nice sophisticated feeling.
Do you see this new design as a departure from the ‘camera bar’ to a more circular floating element?
You can see these transitional [rounded] elements and now we’ve tidied up the sides. One of the reasons we’ve done that is that it provides more strength. We now have a single piece of glass in the back that’s going to be more durable for drop resistance.
When it’s integrated with the case, it looks really finished, and this floating island allows us to do that. It’s also really important for us that there are no ridges and bumps with individual camera modules, and that it all feels like a very solid and ‘one piece’ kind of approach.
Were there any challenges in making the Pro into a smaller version?
It’s just a huge challenge fitting the cameras in there. Along with the battery, we really wanted to have the thickness remain the same because the temptation is to say, okay, it’s smaller, it’s going to have to be thicker to make up for the volume. But we’re able to do this without any sacrifice.
With the Pixel Fold, can you talk us through the main design changes for the second generation?
The foldable is a huge jump forward for us. We know that a lot of people who are moving to foldables, they’re using it closed initially a lot. So it needs to feel like a good phone in hand, foremost. We also wanted to make sure the outside screen was a lot better. It’s more immersive, and the inside [display] is now a lot nicer to review content.
Our goal is to make it about the phones [foldables and main Pixel series] about the same [in size and weight]. We made a huge jump here to 10.5mm depth when it’s closed, which is really quite acceptable. And when it’s open, I mean, you can see we have a very, very thin device.
Of course, we also want to have a really good camera still, and this is how we landed on this new camera design. This is inherently an asymmetrical device, so the camera being in the corner makes a lot more sense. It allows us to do a bigger battery as well.
Who do you see as the ideal customer for the Pixel Fold?
I think we want it to change and we see it changing as well. It went from a technophilic early adopter at the beginning, and I think with the way we’re approaching this – with an almost more jewellery type of approach – we’re trying to open up that market and make it more mainstream. We’re really image and video-hungry, right? And the consumption of it is just so great on these devices.
How do you balance durability and repairability in design?
We’re offering seven years of software upgrades now. So we want to create phones that last longer. We’re seeing more and more users asking for it. And so we’ve designed a lot of features into this that make it easier.
This construction with flat glass front and back, and a thicker frame on the side, makes it more durable and gives it better drop resistance, protecting the glass better. But we also now are able to get to the battery much easier.
And we’re working together with iFixit, with our goal being to make it easier and easier for even, you know, anyone with not a lot of experience to replace the battery and the screen.
Ultimately, longevity is the best way to be environmentally friendly because you don’t have to buy a new device. And we’re trying to do better on every front. We’re using recycled aluminium, recycled plastics, resins, post-consumer recycled resins. That’s really important to us.
You’ve talked in the past about not really looking at the competition and instead looking at architecture and materials during the design process. Are there any of those specific design inspirations that came into this process for the latest Google Pixel products?
We are evolving the Pixel Buds, but you can really see how this is influenced by a pebble. To feel really good in the hand. And when you use one, you can feel that on a daily basis, the satisfaction of that.
Our watch is inspired by a drop of water. We literally 3D-scanned water drops and then took those same curvatures and put them into the watch design. And on the phones, we take a lot of cues from high-end watches, high-end photography, these kinds of elements that have been inspiration rather than, you know, other phones that are out there.
At our Colour Material Finish lab in Mountain View, we collect items from the whole world. People from the design team bring things in and that’s sort of where we live and breathe. As designers, I think we have a strong sense for colour, and trying to come up with a colour palette that gives the broadest possible choice for users within just four colours. This is a big puzzle to solve.
Most of us put our phones in cases much of the time. How much do you think about cases when you’re designing phones?
Very much so, but more so in this generation than ever before. We want it to be very integrated when they’re together. And I can safely say this is the most integrated phone case on the market. When you put the case on, you don’t have any ridges or individual elements. it’s all super unified and it’s very comfortable in hand.
The other thing we did, is that we made the regular Pixel and the smaller Pro exactly the same outline. So I can now use the same case on this phone, and I can do a lot more colour combinations. It sounds like an easy thing to do but they have different features on the inside, and to get the engineers to adhere to exactly the same silhouette is actually quite a challenge.
How long have you been working on these? Is it always the case that you’re already working on the next one when the previous generation gets released?
Exactly, yeah. Two generations. We’re always living in the future as designers, it’s rather funny. This year, though, it’s really like a new beginning for us. Especially as the build of these is incredible. They’re just so solid, so it feels like a big step up.