More than one year before Apple launched the iPad, the founder of Aquent (John Chuang) approached us (at Pentagram) to design an identity and UX for a new home-focused netbook device. Abbott Miller designed the identity, and Lisa Strausfeld and her team at Pentagram designed the UX.
The Litl webbook can be used in two configurations: like a laptop to surf the Web, or flipped upright, like an easel, for broadcast of photos or videos. The user interface we designed is based on a series of “cards,” each functioning like a tab in an open browser window. In laptop mode, the cards can appear arranged on a screen like thumbnails, or opened up one at a time; in the easel/broadcast configuration, the cards appear as a rolodex stack and can be “tuned in” like a tv channel.