Malin Leschly, Logitech’s chief design officer, earned her chops on the {hardware} firm by working for a demanding set of shoppers: Livestreamers. “Streamers want to look good, they want to sound good, and they want to have control over what they do,” she says.
Now, simply over half a 12 months into her position as Logitech’s CDO, Lechsley is exploring how the corporate can use AI to make life slightly simpler for content material creators. In September, Logitech, by its Streamlabs subsidiary, launched an “AI Game Highlighter” that routinely converts livestreams on Twitch into shorter clips that may be shared on platforms like YouTube, X and Instagram.
“It’s an opportunity where we can see if AI can be helpful,” she says. Streamers, for instance, think about 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 in regards to the design course of on the middle of the corporate.
The designer took a “winding path” to the {hardware} firm, she says. Leschly grew up in Sweden, the place “pretty much any experience you have is designed.” She arrived within the U.S. to attend enterprise faculty within the late Nineties. “California got its teeth 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 “widely copied on almost any Bluetooth speaker on the market.” Leschly joined Logitech when the {hardware} producer acquired Non Object in 2018. “It wasn’t a big leap to move from smaller companies or a small studio to Logitech,” she remembers.
Logitech is now barreling into the AI development, integrating the brand new expertise into its many services. Earlier this 12 months, Logitech modified its laptop mice by including a devoted “AI Prompt Builder” button, which routinely launches the generative AI program ChatGPT with preset prompts.
AI is a controversial expertise within the design house, as critics argue it rehashes outdated concepts, reinforces present biases and, importantly, places people out of labor.
Leschly nonetheless sees AI as the newest in an extended 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 same thing over and over again, there’s no creativity in that. There’s no positive, meaningful surprise.”
“We can’t use AI in that way,” she says.
‘Constraints into opportunities’
In 2023, Logitech pledged to incorporate on every product’s packaging the overall carbon emissions generated over its lifespan. It’s a part of a sustainability push for the {hardware} firm, identified for its peripherals ubiquitous in workplaces the world over.
Sustainability matches into Leschley’s design philosophy of attempting to show “constraints into opportunities.” 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 dwelling.
“We reduced the carbon footprint of this product by more than a third,” she says.
Courtesy of Logitech
The Casa desk can also be notable in being derived, at the very least partially, from the wants of Logitech’s prospects, notably these in Asia. “Many people neither have the space nor the desire to have a desk.” she says. “It was very true among women. They wanted to move around in their homes.”
That’s not the one commentary Logitech’s drawing from its Asian customers. Leschly notes that youthful Asians at the moment are “blurring” work and play. The most recent factor her group is noticing? Youthful staff are bringing their gaming keyboards into the workplace, reasonably than counting on the usual cookie-cutter mannequin.
For these customers, a snug keyboard is “like finding your favorite sweater,” Leschly says. “They love the typing experience!”
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 Experience,” designs that blur the road between the bodily and digital worlds to captivate customers and foster lasting connections. Register right here!
