About this project
FLIO - ultra slim & portable wooden laptop stand
€20,754
For a healthy, active lifestyle. I like having the freedom to use my laptop comfortably wherever I am, whether it’s a café, train, office, or any other public space. And I bet you do too.
Nowadays we’re more active than ever, carrying our laptop everywhere and all the time for communicating, watching movies, playing and working. This multitude of environments comes at a price: lack of comfort and back pains. The inconvenience is that a laptop’s screen is really low compared to our eye-level, and after a while of concentrating on work, back pain appears.
I know this problem first-hand, and tried to improvise with objects around me to lift the laptop higher. The issue was that it either wasn’t positioned high enough, unstable, or I couldn’t type without an additional keyboard. And even if my temporary ‘construction’ helped with a proper posture, it was too heavy and massive to take it with me. So that’s why I invented the Flio stand!
Flio provides the conditions for a proper sitting position, easy typing and at the same time it is lightweight and collapsible to carry and use in any environments you need.
WHY YOU'LL LOVE FLIO STAND! IT IS:
- ergonomic: work comfortably & easy-to-type
- portable: slim, lightweight & collapsible
- made from sustainable quality wood
- stable and strong
- keeps your laptop cool and responsive
- customisable
- for smartphones
Ergonomic. Flio elevates your laptop significantly to a good viewing height, keeping your back straight and not making any compromise when it comes to easy typing. We know typing is a must, so we spent a lot of time finding the best balance between elevation height and a right angle so you don’t need an extra keyboard. To be sure that this balance can be adjusted to your comfort, we introduced two elevation levels (13cm / 5.11" and 14,5cm / 5.51").
Portable: slim, lightweight & collapsible. Perhaps Flio is the slimmest wooden laptop stand ever made and one of a kind. It’s made from three thin elements of wood that stack together perfectly like a small jig-saw puzzle, fitting seamlessly in any bag or even your laptop sleeve. Stacked, Flio is only 8mm / 0.31" thick and so light (380g / 0.84lb), that it will be almost unnoticeable while you’re on the go. Flio is intuitive and fast to assemble.
To make all parts of the puzzle stick to each other we integrated tiny magnets so that you’ll not lose any parts on the bottom of your bag.
Sustainable. Flio was made with sustainability in mind, that’s why we went for wood. Wood is warm, has beautiful texture and doesn’t affect the environment as plastic would, at production as well as at the end of the product’s life. We don’t just pay attention to quality but also to hallmarks and certifications. All wood panels come from plantations compliant to FSC or PEFC regulations, assuring a fair purchase from manufacturers. Base Flio version comes in high quality Hardboard with the same smooth texture on both sides. The other four options are Eucalyptus Hardboard, Oil Tempered Hardboard, Beech wood with natural finish and Bamboo. Each of them has it’s own unique advantages so that it fit’s your personal style.
Stable and strong. Flio is not just slim but also very strong. We searched for the strongest types of wood panels out there and the ones that behave best under the pressure of the laptop. The triangular construction of the stand assures there’s no flexibility while typing or holding your hands on the pad of your laptop. Flio is also extremely stable because it has a large base support of 22 by 24 cm / 8,6" by 9,4".
Keeps your laptop cool and responsive. One of the main reasons laptops get hot in time is because they accumulate dust from the surfaces they’re placed on. A hot laptop can not only cause troubles to a user, but it can also cause damage to the main components leading to an expensive repair bill. That’s why is essential to have a clean airflow around your computer. Flio addresses all of these problems.
Customisable. Because it’s made with CNC machinery we can control the whole cutting and engraving process with laser precision, allowing us to add or modify the elements of Flio on the way. We can customise it in two ways:
- Engrave two lines of text (140 characters) with your favourite inspirational quote, a tweet or greeting.
- Cut a drawing into the small back panel. Now you can choose either the O or X version. If we'll reach the stretched goal of 25.000 euro we'll develop two unique drawing versions together with you. On our Facebook page we will collect the best proposals and together with you we'll decide which ones will go to production. It can be a superhero symbol, a heart, a pattern or any other thing you can think of as long as it fits the minimum requirements of the vector drawing.
Flio for smartphones. Because we’re looking for comfort and productivity we wanted to treat all our mobile devices with the same care as our laptops. So we created Flio Mini. A smaller stand that fits your jeans pocket, can be attached to keys and holds your smartphone at the right angle to watch a movie, receive a video call or surf the internet, without the hassle of holding your phone all the time. Have it on your desk, train or airplane table or pretty much anywhere you go.
SPECIFICATIONS
Flio is 22cm / 8.7" wide and 26cm / 10.2" tall. It accommodates any laptop size from 11" to 17", and fits with all the MacBook Pros, the MacBook Airs and many PC laptops. One thing should be kept in mind for PC laptops, is that the front edge should have a support point lower than 10mm / 0.04". The thickness of Flio when collapsed, for the base material and Beech wood is 8mm. For Tempered and Eucalyptus Hardwood is 6mm, and for the Bamboo version 10mm.
Its packaging is manually printed with silkscreen technique resulting in a high quality print and flexibility in the production process.
WE NEED YOUR HELP!
We (me and the Flio team) need your help to bring Flio to everybody and lower the production costs. We believe it’s a unique solution and all of us should be able to enjoy a comfortable working environment everywhere. If we’ll raise the 19.000 euro goal, we’ll be able to buy all materials at once directly from manufacturers, cutting the costs, and also be able to acquire a laser cutter so that we can produce it ourselves, perfect it, and have complete control over design and customisation.
Making it in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, will allow us not only to manage every production step but also to support the local creatives that gave us confidence and believed in our product. If we will reach our goal, we can grow our team to have even more talented people onboard. Flio production is involving collaborations with local collective workspaces for creatives, and in case of a successful campaign they will be benefiting of your support as well.
Whatever your support might be we’re happy that we’ll be one step closer to reaching the dream. Of course, we have rewards for everybody:
SCHEDULE
After the end of this campaign we will immediately start acquiring the materials and pushing the production of Flio for the ‘Christmas Gift’ backers. We’ll send this batch for cutting directly at a small, local workshop, which can produce a limited amount of the stands. While they’re made we’ll be busy setting up our own cutting machine and print the packaging. We will need few weeks for adjustments before starting to produce the rest of the stands.
THE STORY
I have an active lifestyle and like to be involved in many projects and initiatives. Usually when I’m focusing on work and enjoying doing something I forget completely how I sit in the chair, if I’m hungry or need sleep. I’m guessing you know this state of mind. Because laptops have smaller and lower screens than desktop computers, that forces us to work in inappropriate conditions for our back posture. So I started improvising with objects lying around and at some point decided to have a proper solution. Unfortunately I wasn’t satisfied with the market solutions because they were meant for fixed working places, were not foldable to put in my bag and required an external keyboard. So I said, why not solve it properly by myself?
Using the workshop at the art academy where I was doing my design master course, I started experimenting with a lot of materials and different concepts. I wanted to make it lift my laptop quite high and be at an angle that would allow me to type easy and skip the need for an extra keyboard when I was on the go.
Initially the construction consisted of three elements on top of each other, but in time I managed to reduce them and fit them as a jigsaw puzzle. I simplified the shape and made it more stable.
My surprise was when my colleagues wanted one. One became five, five became ten and so the more the stand was out there in the world more people wanted it. The stand gained a positive reception and also a lot of improvements from people’s feedback: some of them mentioned that would be great to hold all parts together while carrying so that’s how the magnets were added; some of them said the level was too high or two low, so that’s how the levels came through. My colleague graphic designer Irina suggested the product needs more personality and came up with its identity and packaging.
At the same time with this demand it was hard to keep the product affordable for everybody so I started to think about possible reductions of the costs. With some research I realised that having direct contracts with materials suppliers and using my own equipment would be the most efficient way to solve this problem. Moreover, this would bring full control of the quality. Since the launch of own production requires a big investment I needed help of other people. That’s how the decision was made to ask for the support of the Kickstarter community.
Now is the moment to continue this story together with you!
And hey, why not pass by and visit us in Rotterdam? After all it’s been mentioned in the top places to go in 2014 by NY Times. Our team would be glad to give you tips around town.
TEAM
We’re two people currently working full time on this product, Vlad Butucariu and Irina Shapiro, but we are lucky enough to have friends around ready to jump in to give us a hand. Together we are Studio Squash, a design studio with a passion for graphic, social and product design. We met 4 years ago during our master studies in the Netherlands and since then we've teamed up to bring new and crazy ideas to life and share them with the world. What all these directions have in common for us is the ability of design to activate people and contribute to their everyday needs.
Risks and challenges
Every production process comes with surprises. In our case the biggest threat is timing as we want to deliver every Flio in mint condition no matter the effort. Delivery times of the materials from manufacturers and of the laser cutting machine might gives us trouble, but to minimise the risks we’ve contacted all the parties in advance to know what to receive, and when.
We have experience in working with the laser cutter, and taking Flio from prototype to smaller numbers gave us the ability to anticipate easier what might go wrong.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
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If you want to have Flio mini to any of your Flio pledge, just edit the amount with 10 euro or 13 dollars, depending by your currency. So if you pledge for Flio early birds for 20, modify and make it 30. The shipping remains the same amount on top.
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Funding period
- (33 days)