Onyx Classic was the Orion Labs’ first product. I was responsible for the industrial design of Onyx and worked with a very small team to bring it to market. Onyx is a push-to-talk group communication device that allows for hands-free, heads-up, realtime communication. It’s a wearable device that uses Bluetooth to communicate with your smartphone, and then uses your phone’s data connection to send a receive messages.

I also created the packaging for the first generation Onyx for Orion (then OnBeep). Because the packaging was made for e-commerce, my goal was not to catch a potential customer’s eye and convince them to buy, rather to surprise and delight an existing customer and foster a connection with the product as well as the brand.

The packaging draws its inspiration from the gem and mineral world. The outside is covered a matte black surface criss-crossed by thin lines of spot varnish that form irregular facets like those of a natural crystal formation.

As the customer opens the package a folded-paper mechanism, like those found in pop-up books, raises the device upwards as if it were being borne up from the depths of the earth where it was formed.