Delivering a Sustainable Future with Design Language

To distinguish themselves in a market filled with outdated, homogenous design, NetApp’s new hardware design language emphasizes their progressive, intelligent, and bold brand personality. Key visual elements were defined to create a cohesive look across products, ensuring each product could be instantly recognized as a NetApp product. Sophisticated materials and finishes were selected to express brand maturity, while clever and intuitive touchpoints enhance the user experience.

M3 worked closely with NetApp mechanical engineers and contract manufacturers throughout the development of the new design language system. M3 utilized its expertise in light-piping and light diffusion to help design the fully illuminated NetApp logo that becomes the priority read on each bezel. It was critical that the light diffused consistently across the logo without noticeable hotspots or inconsistencies. M3 developed a lighting test platform to quickly iterate on illumination prototypes to accomplish the desired outcome. Additionally, M3 developed and quickly prototyped the display and light-pipes resulting in a dead front display that celebrates the updated brand attributes.

M3 and NetApp collaborated extensively with manufacturers, leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of sustainable and recycled materials for the new hardware. After thorough evaluation, we selected plastic regrind resin for the main bezels which recaptures and repurposes scrap plastic to achieve the distinctive speckled look.