14 DAY TRIAL // The Touch Mouse Artist Edition is a new flavor of the plain vanilla Touch Mouse, upgraded with a new designed created by Deanne Cheuk. Already a marvelous product, the peripheral received an artistic upgrade courtesy of Cheuk, as users can see in the image on the left as well as in the video embedded below.
Lindsey Kujawski, user experience designer on the Microsoft Hardware Industrial Design team notes that the idea that catalyzed the creation of the new Touch Mouse Artist Edition was born from the way that users were interacting with the original Touch Mouse.
“But for our latest project we didn’t have to look far — we found inspiration in the technology of one of Microsoft’s latest products. We were captivated by the fluid, rhythmic patterns of people using the Microsoft Touch Mouse,” Kujawski said.
“Their finger paths and hand movements beautifully flowed in an organic nature —it was like watching an orchestral conductor — so we wanted to release a limited-edition graphic for the Touch Mouse that spoke to the beautiful motion, and we knew just the artist that could bring that to life.”
The peripheral transformed into artwork retails for $79.95, the same price as the original natural user interface (NUI) device.
More importantly, it sports the same range of NUI functionality, enabling users running Windows 7 to navigate via natural gestures on the mouse’s multitouch surface. All of the Touch Mouse’s original features are also present, including the Snap-in Nano transceiver and BlueTrack technology.
“We asked New York-based artist Deanne Cheuk, known for her illustrative typography, to develop a new design that captured the motion of the Touch Mouse. Deanne worked to integrate circuit boards and symmetry in her line work design,” Kujawski added.
“The result is the new Touch Mouse Artist Edition pattern — etched with an intricate, calligraphy-like motif — that echoes the tracing motion a person performs over the Touch Mouse.”