Vol.1 Story of the birth of NuAns

Tetsushi Hoshikawa, CEO of Trinity, Inc. who produces Simplism, mobile accessories, especially for iPhone, always begins his development process by asking himself what he himself would really want and how to make it provide the highest utility. These are the simple guiding principles he has used whenever he has sought to develop not only unique, specialty-use accessories such as “The Fingerist,” a micro-guitar with built in amplifier that your iPhone fits into for use with music playing apps, but also mass production products such as iPhone cases or Sleeve for MacBook. He has applied these same principles to the ideas for the NuAns brand.

He said, “I had relied on advanced graphic design to create different products such as iPhone cases but I had been contemplating making something with a clean look.” He decided to focus on making digital tools that he felt would positively impact people’s everyday lives.
He continued, “We wanted these products to be distinguished as high-end, not mixed amongst existing cheap plastic goods, by offering a superior experience. So I decided to collaborate with a product designer to make a unique new brand.”

Tetsushi (Hoshikawa) contacted ‘TENT’, an industrial design group whom he had exchanged some product ideas in the past.
“My focus has always been to complete a product rather than working on a product for a lengthy time and not shipping it. I wanted to work with people who could produce multiple products in a short amount of time and deliver. TENT has been around for just two years and they have already shipped their own original brands”

The two designers from TENT visited Trinity with ideas and prototypes as soon as they were asked to come with a proposal to Trinity.
“We didn’t bring abstract ideas or concepts. We went straight to our specific product ideas and brought actual mock-up products made from paper” said Ryosaku Aoki of TENT. The basic ideas of BANDWIRE, TAGPLATE, MAGDOT and MAGMAT were born from this initial meeting. “TENT had wanted to enter the accessories market for iPhone so we had already been thinking of ideas that we felt had not yet been satisfied by others.” Masayuki Haruta, also of TENT, said.

The idea of MAGDOT was explored during the initial discussion.
The actual idea of holding a lightning connector with a magnet had already been suggested to Trinity before, but not the manufacturing of the product itself with a mat as a base.

“We shared many specific ideas. After discussing what was good and what was not, we moved forward with coming up with the final design of the product.”
TENT has a product called “TOUCH DOG” which is quite unique and whimsical with a bit of a sense of humor behind it but Tetsushi asked for something without too much humor or playfulness.
“This brand aspires to become a natural part of people’s lives. We left the humor aspect out of NuAns and focused on something with a more subtle elegance..’ said Tetsushi.

The formation of the brand NuAns was due to a collaborative effort of an equal partnership between Trinity and TENT. Becoming one was important and building the brand from the ground up has gone really well.

TENT’s concept for the brand was for the products to be not only functional and convenient, but also comfortable and familiar with the ability to feel as though they had always been a part of a person’s life.
“We came up with many name ideas for this product to fit our brand concept.”
During that discussion, we encountered the word ‘nuance’ which we felt had a connection to people’s daily lives.
‘We had our common sense about us,” Mr. Haruta laughed in remembering back to that time.
We decided on the name ‘NuAns’ (purposeful irregular capitalization) because of the double benefit of pronouncing it like ‘nuance’ as well as providing a message of ‘New Answer.’ “It is a bit hard to read, but the name sounds familiar and implicated new, which we liked,” Mr. Haruta said modestly, but with conviction.

This is how the NuAns product line got its name.

Vol.2
Sense of Unity for the brand　＞