Sungho Lee Interview

Sungho Lee is the designer that conceived Clef Electronic Music Note Stand, one of the finalists at the NextGen PC Design Competition.
In his resume on Coroflot.com we found out that he studied at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI and he graduated in 2007 the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Product Design, after which he started to work as Design Intern at Reebok International.

Among his studio projects we encounter furniture, electronics, Personal Digital Document Appliance, office products, architecture and just to give you two examples, he created the Outdoor Detroit Music Theater and Desk Clock, ETIM: Based on Jasper Morrison's design philosophy.
Here you can check them.

Sungho draws his ideas using Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Alias, Rhino, Imagestudio, Handsketching and Modelmaking.
He found some free time to give us a special interview about his work and the inspiration that lead his thoughts to the creation of such an interesting and unique PC design: Clef.

Techpin: Sungho, we would like you to tell our readers how your passion for design started and why you chose technology.

SUNGHO LEE: I have been very much into electronics, especially handheld devices. This area always inspires me to keep learning and try something new.And, I thought this year the Microsoft competition could be a good opportunity for me to push forward my ideas with new technology.

Techpin: So you started to focus on the innovation aspects of technology and you wanted to create something new based on your own ideas. But why didn’t you choose I don’t know..... to combine a portable computer and a piano, instead of an electronic music note stand? Do you know much about these music tools or did you study music?

SUNGHO LEE: I used to go to classical music concerts very often. Whenever I saw players turn pages, I thought there’s got to be something to let them just play music. Because they looked .. very bothered. Besides, a music note stand essentially has many great aspects to develop when it is conceived as electronics. So, I thought ‘”yes! This is it’” It was a perfect subject for this competition seeing as this year’s design theme was to help people to do what they feel passionate about.

Techpin: What music genres do you enjoy listening?

SUNGHO LEE: I have a very wide taste for music. From rock to classical.

Techpin: Can you tell us what the key elements of Clef are, what would it bring new on the market and who will benefit from its features if someone will choose to invest in its production?

SUNGHO LEE: As I said on my project description, Clef works as a music player and a laptop as well as a music note stand. The top priority of this project was combining several components such as a base, a foot pedal and a display into a portable computer and making it compact at a same time. Otherwise, it would have been just another digital transform. It was very challenging! And aesthetically I wanted to deliver a simple and modern look.
As my main target demographic, I thought of instrument players. By making this product portable, I intended to satisfy their various needs. And, considering it is a portable device, it could potentially attract a wider group of people who just love and enjoy music.



Techpin: We’d also want to know what your favorite PC concept from the NextGen PC Design Competition is, besides Clef of course.

SUNGHO LEE: Well, I don’t know. There are many good ideas. And, I think they are all very talented. It is definitely not easy to come up with something extraordinary out of the ordinary. The challenge needs very keen observation. They all did a great job!

Techpin: Well thank you very much for your time, Sungho! Will you announce Techpin as soon as you’ll come up with your next project, because our readers are anxious to find out about the coolest gadgets and technology innovations?

SUNGHO LEE: Yes of course. Getting feedback from others is always very important to me as well. And it was a pleasure talking with you. Thank you.