The digital landscape has sparked a new era of creativity and technology has made creating more accessible than ever. A new generation of content creators, selfie savants, 3d devotees, video editing virtuosos, photoshop fiends, and illustrating enthusiasts have been born. The latest workstation-grade ProArt Station D940MX desktop computer is made for this group of talented individuals to balance their different needs.
Today designers Yalin Wu and Max Lai talk about design thinking and the features of the ProArt Station D940MX.
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Editor： How was the ProArt Station D940MX conceptualized?
Yalin： The current global trend of creators is creating an industry boom. We found the proportion of casual and professional creators has grown recently, and the demand for professional creators on PC products is clear. The computer is a tool for creators to produce professional work and make money. These creators require performance and stability, with effective peripherals, but in most cases, performance is limited to a selection of e-sports devices or workstations.
Our goal was to create a desktop computer that is professional, stable, and powerful like a workstation, but also accounts for the overall aesthetics with intuitive functions.
Editor： Can you define what a workstation computer is?
Yalin： A workstation computer is a high-performance computer with high-end CPUs and memory. It looks different from ordinary desktops, is usually modular and placed in a large cabinet. Inside is drawers to hold components, it has debugging and thermal capabilities. However, these are usually very expensive and out of budget for most creators.
Editor： It sounds like to design a desktop computer with the performance of a workstation, its necessary to break the normal limitations of size. How did you deal with that?
Yalin： From the perspective of basic logic, the more powerful a desktop computer, the larger the unit. You need more space to accommodate higher-spec motherboards, graphic cards, and additional slots for other hardware. From our observations, we found that the creator’s desk space is a suitable place to hold the desktop, but because the creator’s work area usually has a lot of working materials, the desktop is placed on the ground. That makes it very inconvenient to plug and unplug cables. This time our goal was to find a balance of design and stability.
The picture above shows the working environment of a creator. Creators would like to place the computer on their desk. However, the working area is often filled with objects and materials, so the computer is placed on the floor.
When designing, creators have a variety of tools to assist their work. Intuitive use and strategic placement are important considering design elements.
Max：Once we established our goal, we began with the appearance and size of the desktop. We wanted to break through the image of a heavy machine occupying a large space on the desk. Cooperating with researchers in Taipei and Singapore we studied creators’ workflows and discovered a source of inspiration. We looked at buildings with narrow alleyways and noticed their well-organized and structured style. These alleyways inspired us to construct a well-planned desktop city for creators.
The D940MX is inspired by narrow lanes and architecture.
Max：We thought about how to achieve functionality and usability, and an elevation angle of 4.5 degrees helps users to plug unplug cables as well as making heat dissipation more efficient.
The 4.5-degree angle is ergonomic for inserting or removing parts.
Yalin： As Max mentioned the heat dissipation, the space created by the angled body allows air to move through the body of the desktop. The vent holes are designed with wave textures to help with heat diffusion and sound reduction.
The ProArt Station D940MX intakes air from the bottom and exhausts it from the top away from the user.
Yalin：We took into consideration the needs of creators to upgrade their device, simplifying the disassembling of the body to access the motherboard or storage trays.
Easy to disassemble and screws to match the texture of the device.
Yalin： During our design phase we considered more lifestyle design inspiration sources such as hanging pots, but it wasn’t so practical (laugh).
Editor: Can you tell us more about the function of the light source?
Yalin：Creators are often rendering videos or 3d while away from their keyboard. This light allows them to see the status of their render at a glance without disturbing the computer.
▲ A white light indicates normal operations while blue light indicates the system under heavy load such as rendering. ▲
Editor: After listening to a lot about the design of ProArt Station D940MX, can you share the value you want to bring users?
Yalin：As creators ourselves, we know very well that when we choose tools, we have a lot of options in the market. It is troublesome to understand some of these specs, and this product allows creators to get straight to it.
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The designers shed great light on the D940MX and elaborated on its innovative tricks and functions. It is great to hear they made a good design partner in the D940MX.
Check out the product video below!