sylvain willenz: NEW CLS freecom mobile drive

CLS freecom mobile drives photos by julien renault images courtesy of sylvain willenz

following the success of the XXS mobile drive and other products, german company freecom commissioned belgian designer sylvain willenz – with project assistant robbie van nieuwenhove – to develop a new concept for collecting and organizing data. the result is the CLS external mobile hard drive that incorporates a labeling system on its side which allows users to organize their data and identify hard drive contents at a glance.

the design concept came from witnessing the growing number of hard drives owned by individuals for their data (music, films, back-ups…). influenced by the good old cassette tapes and floppy drives, willenz imagined a drive that could be labeled in a very simple and personal way. labels are kept behind a removable window set in the side of the drive. the CLS comes in a stackable see-through case accompanied by spare colored labels and a small USB cable. there is also a dock which allows three drives and 1 extra peripheral to be connected to the computer simultaneously.

there is a dock which accommodates three drives and one extra peripheral to be connected to a computer simultaneously

the CLS is made from injection moulded plastics and a 2.5" hard drive. it measures 109.8 x 79.5 x 13.5 mm in size.

the overall design draws on casette tapes and floppy drives

each drive can be labeled making it easy to identify and organize

the labels are protected by a removable see-through window

putting the removable see-through window in place

labeled hard drive

each drive is accompanied by extra colored labels

freecom CLS mobile drive overview