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
SYLVAIN WILLENZ (9)
Oct 06, 2016
May 08, 2015
Sep 10, 2012
Mar 16, 2012
Apr 30, 2011PRODUCT LIBRARY
Mar 30, 2021
Mar 24, 2021
Mar 19, 2021
janet Aug 17, 2010 Dr. Design Aug 16, 2010
more commentsI think this is great. I would put my name on it or just leave it blank with the color as is, so I don’t keep on plugging my boyfriend’s HD into my computer. We both have Willenz’s previous HD and both opted for the black version. They are beautiful and great material.
This is so weird…like a full turn. We used to save data on cassettes then came along discs…some time later hard drives where we didn’t need a library of discs or cartridges littering the desk and shelves…and now, due to memory eating data we have to return to this “old” way of storage? It’s all very nice but feels like a step into the past somehow.