Six years ago the first version of what became a speaker loved by design and music interested people all over the world was created for the first time: the Transparent Speaker. Now, a few years later, Transparent Sound is back with two versions of the Transparent Speaker and a limited edition named UPCRAFTED, where they together with skilled craftsmen are continuing to move the boundaries between design, technology and craft.

The first version of the Transparent Speaker was born during an internal lab 2012 and quickly received a lot of positive attention. The year before four friends had started the company, initially named People People, with an ambition to show an alternative to all the complicated tech products on the market. After some years of product development and internal organisational changes four have become two. Per Brickstad and Martin Willers are now back with Transparent Sound and exciting speakers in both familiar as well as new designs.

The driving force for Transparent Sound have always been a curiosity, a desire and a will to question what tech products mean and bring to people’s life. Per and Martin sees themselves as craft nerds, with an almost unhealthy relation to details. They aim to create emotions with their products and to make people co-operate with the nature to a greater extent. Their design approach takes inspiration from the Scandinavian functionalism, but also includes contemporary elements, materials, textures as well as details.

Due to their interest in craft, and the respect for our nature, Per and Martin have the latest year, except for continuing to improve their Transparent Speaker, also developed a limited edition collection of handcrafted speakers that will be released in the end of November. The collection is called UPCRAFTED and has been created together with skilled craftsmen. The collection consists of three ”up cycled” speakers: one wood speaker, one ceramic speaker and one steel speaker. The collection solely consists of 10 versions of each speaker.

”With the collection UPCRAFTED we aim to investigate to what extent an advanced tech item also can be a beautiful design object. To investigate where the line goes we have decided to work with real natural materials and talented craftsmen. There is something truly exciting in letting components transform into new formats, where the products are modular and to some extent also circular: a refining process where we let the product ”up cycle” to an even better and more unique product. We like the idea of things getting better with time,” says Per, Head of Design at Transparent Sound.

In a time where tech products are often complicated and often feel old already after a year or so, Transparent Sound strive to be an alternative. The name ’Transparent’ stands for different things: except for a charismatic and unique design the name also mean a questioning of the industry within which they operate, and an attempt for a more open, honest and sustainable business.

The company’s ambition is to create qualitative tech products that age with dignity and can be passed on to the next generation. The chosen materials and the manufacturing process focuses on being modular and repairable to make sure as few components as possible are thrown away. All speakers from Transparent Sound include a Bluetooth function, and for those who wish the speakers can also be upgraded with voice disorder and multi-room-systems. The definition Transparent Sound also refers to the fact that the speaker gives a correct translation of a recording.

The different speakers in the UPCRAFTED collection have been designed together with skilled craftsmen. The Wood Speaker together with Dry Studios, the ceramic speaker together with the ceramist Hortense Montarnal from Lyon in France, and the steel speaker together with Jonas Majors from Mörkö. The collection will be released the 30/11 and will be available in a limited edition of ten of each via transparentspeaker.com. The steel speaker will be available at a prize of 25 000 SEK and the Wood and ceramic speaker for 15 000 SEK. The ceramic speaker will except for Transparent Sound’s own web also be available at Empreintes in Paris.

Except for the UPCRAFTED collection the Small Transparent Speaker is finally also available for preorders. It’s a more neat and white version of the original product. The first batch consists of 999 speakers and will be delivered to all pre-order buyers after Christmas. A beautiful gift proof will be
delivered as well if you wish to give the speaker as a Christmas present to someone. The small Transparent Speaker is for sale for 5000 SEK, and the black original speaker for a prize of 10 000 SEK. The can both be ordered via transparentspeaker.com

To see more of what they are up to, also follow them at @transparentspeaker on Instagram and Facebook.

About Transparent Sound

Transparent Sound was for a couple of years run as a side project by the design studio People People. The first version of the Transparent Speaker was 2012 uploaded on their blog and the positive reactions immediately took off. The post got viral and on the followers request the speaker was launched through crowd funding. Between 2013 and 2017 the speaker popped up in many interesting contexts, for example in music videos for world artists such as Snoop Dog, Britney Spears and Will.I.Am.

2018 two of the original founders, Per Brickstad and Martin Willers, decided to focus on the speakers fully hearted and are now re-launching the brand with some exciting projects. They have, among other things, collaborated with skilled craftsmen from Sweden and France for a collection called UPCRAFTED where components are reborn in a collection of hand made speakers. They are also finally releasing the anticipated small transparent speaker. All speakers are designed to be as much timeless interior design objects as a great sounding piece of Electronics. They have also been carefully considered down to the last detail to ensure quality and functionality, but it also carry a hidden mission - they want to radically change and clean up the dirty consumer electronics industry that is currently trashing our planet.

http://eu.transparentspeaker.com/