Competition Phobya Design a Case Competition - Stage 2

Your right I probably shouldn't have used mods as an example, but the same applies to production cases. A better example would be Lian-Li cases and the CoolerMaster HAF series. Both appeal to different tastes but both are still good examples of "high volume" production cases. I'm not trying to garner more votes here (pointless at this point), but I tried to design a very simple case that would be very easy to manufacturer. Look at mountain mods for example of this. The cases are probably only 5-12 actual parts to each case (not including fasteners). They are a great example of a very simple design made of quality materials, that sells in relatively low production numbers. Personally they are a bit bland for my tastes (if you have't figured it out by now I am more the rat-rod guy than the sports car guy ) I like the look of exposed screws and simple but sturdy metalwork, and not a big fan of the "Apple" design school.

Yes, It would have been nice to have a more defined "goal" in the contest but what's done is done. I do feel that because they made it a community contest the people who they would be marketing to would be the people in this community. They also said this would be a part of a new line of cases so I figure let them worry about marketing to a "broad" audience with their other cases. I'm just having fun designing, if you like it great and if not thats fine too.

Oh and my design does have front mounted optical bays if you really want them

Again, these are my personal opinions, I am not right or wrong (neither is anyone else) its just my thoughts.

 

Design is always a question of taste. Some will like it, others won't. The goal was to design a case for watercooling conf. With this is mind, I think that we all reached this goal.

Now, this was more a question of taste (or friends vote) ... but even if friends vote where used, the 5 finalists deserve to go through.

It was very fun, and for sure you'll see monolith (micro-ATX revised) in project log ... stay tuned and may the best design win

 

The thing about style is that it never dates or goes out of fashion. If the look will go out of fashion next year, it's not stylish. At least for me.

Nothing particularly wrong with current designs, it's just that some are very much "of their time". Music is a good analogy. There are those tunes and artists that get "re-discovered" by every generation and still sound new and timely despite being decades (or more) old. Then there are the ones that win a Grammy this year and will disappear within a year or two. They're not bad songs, they just don't have that timeless, almost universal appeal.

The really great designers produce work that looks great decades or even centuries after it was created. Most of us will never reach this standard. That doesn't mean we failed, just that there is a whole other level of success to strive for. Look at Gaudi. His work appeals to each new generation and I suspect will go on appealing for centuries into the future.

For mine, there are more than a few mods and scratch-builds here that have truly stylish looks that will be rightfully famous for a long time. And I'm not talking about a single "style". The variety of approaches makes modding great and a true art form of our times.

And that's from a 50 year old. The stuff that some of the younger people here produce is just brilliant with great skills as well as design. So much for the "feckless youth who live inside their PC/games/Fbook/... and can't do anything in the real world" BS spread by a lot of the "older generation". Now that's a group I never want to belong to.

We won't all shine this brightly, but those that do illuminate the path for the rest of us.

 

I think everyone's approach to this contest was a little bit different and that's what make this great. In the original thread they clearly stated
''-You have the choice of designing a case based on a mid tower or full tower or a unique design of your own. The following specifications must be considered but they are NOT mandatory. ,
so i guest it covers pretty much all kind... from the cool looking million dollars ones to the pinnacle of industrial design worship (don't get me wrong at start JRS & Subtec were my favorite).

I went in an other direction because of the low production orientation. I was thinking they wanna get attention, have the people come on the web site just to see ''that Case'' and sell them something else. In order to do that you need the WoW factor that you can aford in limited production runs. Car maker do it all the time...make a special edition just to get the guy in the show room and sell him something else or the low cost version. So with that in mind i went for something that looks at start like a mod...something that as a cool look but that can be produced for a reasonable cost.

I agree it may not be for everyone ( not aimed at a wide range of user) but i think the water cooling commubity is often looking for the bigest Muscle, the Coolest & the Wow factor it can bring to your desktop.

This was the refexion that as lead to the creation of Black Owl.....lets hope phobya is thinking the same way.

@Subtec you should really try to sell that design (if you don't win...) to a custom Workstation maker like BOXX or any company like that cause your case really screams ''I' mdoing serious work on this machine''

So Good luck to all Stage 3 contestant


Mod of the year 1,200 votes
Phobya Contest 151 votes

What's missing ?

 

Final results:

Black Owl by SnowyOwl 79
Proteus by mick64 74
II by Roboduck 66
Dominus by Subtec 65
Phobya Gladio by Razer2007 54

Congrats guys!