About this project
SIMPLcase ~ Minimalist iPhone 5 Case for Travelers
$21,559
922
A huge THANK YOU to all of our Backers, friends, family, crowdfunding peers, journalists, bloggers, and last but certainly not least, Kickstarter, without whom SIMPLcase would not be possible!
To see what else we're up to, stop by and visit our website: lgcldesigns.com
Thank you for the support! SIMPLcase has been featured by:
"[SIMPLcase] proposes to make keeping track of those SIMs and navigating international border-crossing much easier." - TechCrunch
"A new minimalist iPhone case aims to accommodate jet setters who are constantly on the go." - Mashable (video)
"This is another great example of why Kickstarter is what it is. These guys had a need for something, it didn’t exist, so they created it." - iDownloadBlog
SIMPLcase is a slim, minimalist iPhone case designed for global travelers:
- stores both the iPhone's SIM tray eject tool (provided) and spare SIM cards so they're safe
- uses any standard credit card as a stand for using your iPhone hands-free in either horizontal or vertical orientation
Minimal, Elegant Design
We designed SIMPLcase to be slim, not bulky. All of the iPhone's buttons, audio jack, and charge port are totally accessible.
The front edge of SIMPLcase extends by 0.5mm past the surface of the iPhone's glass display, to minimize the risk of scratching the display when laying your iPhone face down.
Inside, the SIMPLcase has a soft silicone rubber insert that will protect your SIM cards' delicate contacts, and securely grip the SIM cards and the eject tool, but still enable you to remove them with ease.
The Freedom to use iPhone Hands Free
As well as storing your SIM cards, the SIMPLcase can also use any standard credit card / bank card / membership card as a stand to prop up the phone in either landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) orientation.
Using a card as a stand keeps the case slim and, well, simple. Cases with built in stands are often bulky, and more likely to break thanks to the extra hinges or joints required to fold and extend the stand. SIMPLcase has no moving parts, so there's nothing to break.
The unique designs of the SIM card + tool holder and card stand slot have been filed as a Utility Model and are Patent Pending.
High Performance Materials for Protection
SIMPLcase will be made from polycarbonate thermoplastic resin, which is the same engineering grade polymer used in shatter-proof sunglasses and durable shells for mobile phones and laptops.
The added thickness is just 3 millimeters in the center of the case (no thicker than a nice men's shirt button), and the case tapers to just 1mm at the edge of the case. You won't notice any bulk, and the case is super low profile where you hold the phone.
iPhone 5 and iPhone 4/4S versions
We've already designed and tested our prototypes for both iPhone 5 and iPhone 4/4S. This page is for iPhone 5 while our iPhone 4/4S Kickstarter page is here.
Available Colors
Reaching our Funding Goal will allow us to offer the iPhone 5 SIMPLcase in these colors:
- Black shell with Turquoise Blue rubber SIM card and tool holder
- White shell with Turquoise Blue rubber SIM card and tool holder
- Tungsten Grey shell with Kickstarter Green rubber SIM card and tool holder (limited edition color combination exclusively for Kickstarter backers)
Travel Wisdom Inside Each SIMPLcase
For the love of travel, we want to add a travel related quote inside each SIMPLcase. If you have one you love please message us and we might use it in production. Send us your words, limited to 140 characters (yep, just like a Tweet) – keep it clean, and reference the source if you can.
Free Worldwide Shipping!
We have secured extremely competitive shipping through a global logistics & fulfillment company that services some of the world's top retail merchants as well as some successful Kickstarter projects. We are thrilled to be able to include Free World Wide shipping to all Backers at all Reward Levels – wherever you are!
This makes it easy to pledge at any reward levels since now you don't have to do any math ;-) The amount you see is the amount you pledge.
About Multiple Quantities
Kickstarter is not a store, and the Guidelines prohibit us from offering Bulk Rewards.
If you are a retailer interested in carrying SIMPLcase, or wish to inquire about wholesale bulk orders, please contact us directly.
Why the SIMPLcase?
Mobile roaming fees can be very expensive so we like to save money by buying local SIM cards when we travel internationally. But…
...it can be fiddly to open the iPhone SIM card tray…
…and do you have the right tool with you? We hate stabbing our iPhone with random spiky things…
These new SIM cards are pretty darn small and easy to misplace …
… and if I lose my SIM card my iPhone becomes an iPod Touch!
From Idea to Kickstarter
With this in mind we designed our own solution. After pages of sketches, months of CAD development and several prototypes, we're now sharing our design with the world.
SitRep and Plan of Attack
We have already designed, prototyped, and tested the SIMPLcase.
We have sourced multiple vendors of varying capacities so we're ready to deliver at low, mid, or high volumes, depending on the number of Backers we have. Our multiple vendors also provide us with Plans B & C in case vendor A runs into a serious hitch.
As soon as we reach our Funding Goal, we will begin preparations for tooling.
Crowdfunding Success and Kicking it Forward
We believe in the concept of Kicking it Forward, and it makes sense for us as creators to support other creators.
Thank You, You're Awesome!
Thanks so much for hearing us out and being interested in SIMPLcase!
Questions? Comments? Criticisms?
Feel free to contact us directly if you have anything you'd like to say about SIMPLcase. Just send us an email: info@lgcldesigns.com or drop us a line.
Tweet us @lgcldesigns to get our attention
Risks and challenges
Under promise and over deliver. That's our mantra. There are no guarantees in life (except for death and taxes), but we've sweated the smallest detail and added in fudge factors to help insure our project against delays and unexpected problems.
We've calculated our Funding Goal and Reward Levels to make sure we have enough funds to fulfill our rewards. If we're lucky enough to well exceed our Funding Goal, we'll simply purchase larger tools with more mold cavities. We have vetted several manufacturers to ensure we have different options to work with for different scales of manufacturing volumes. This also means we have redundancies built-in, as we won't be reliant on - or held captive by - a single vendor.
Our SIMPLcase is not a complicated, high tech hardware project. We use no toxic or untested materials, and we don't need any CE or UL certifications, nor do we need to apply for Apple's approval. The SIMPLcase is designed for manufacture through well-established supply chains using methods and technologies that are known quantities across many industries.
This is also not our first rodeo. Ed and I have decades of professional project management experience. We are also both experienced China hands, and we've spent years honing our negotiation and vendor management skills.
We'll be in the factories during each step of the development process - from CAD data verification through tooling design, incoming material inspections, and production run inspections. We'll be using all of our collective knowledge and experience to make sure your SIMPLcase arrives to you on schedule, and with the quality that you expect and deserve.
In the unlikely - but still possible - event that things go wrong and there are delays, our Backers will not be surprised with the news, as we promise to regularly update our Backers as to our progress along the way to completion. If we hit any snags, you'll know far in advance and will also know how we're going to fix it and get the project back on course. Stuff can go wrong, but we won't keep you in the dark guessing.
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Funding period
- (44 days)