I began my research by creating a mood board and looking at different types of existing mp3 speakers that I thought would best reflect the theme of Tron. During my initial research I decided I would like to design a speaker that was small and compact and would be easy to carry. I was looking for a shape that was as small as possible but would have maximum impact on it's audience.
As the latest 2010 film Tron is the sequel to the 1982 film Tron the target audience could be quite varied. This is due to the 30 year time lag between each film, meaning that the design of the mp3 could meet either a wide audience or be targeted towards the younger (9 - 17) or older (18 - 50) generation. I believe that most of the designs above would meet the criteria for the large difference in age range.
I then looked for key features in Tron that would be the main sources of inspiration from the film. The light cycle was my key focus but I also researched other typical shapes and features that were in the film that could be used for inspiration.
The main features I remembered from the film were; speed, light, mystery, the battle of good versus evil, the costumes, the shapes, key characters, the light cycle and other vehicles, the helmet, the disc and the game. Each of these could equally be an important source of inspiration used to design the speaker.
The further research on the next few pages details the steps taken to further develop my product specification and decide what I aim to achieve through my speaker design, development and manufacture.
