The iThrone was developed by two recent Art Center graduates, Amaya Gutierrez and Kenji Huang, whom I recently met at their Grad Show. Because they want to cast the iThrone in porcelain, a material too expensive for students to buy in bulk, they’ve turned to Kickstarter to help fund their project. Ceramic is not only a beautiful aesthetic choice and an appropriate material for a throne, it also has natural acoustic properties that enable the dock to act as a speaker without any electronic components.
You can, of course, plug in your phone while it rests cozily in either the sleek, white Art Deco iThrone or the more traditional, embellished black option. I tried out Amaya and Kenji’s prototype with my phone, and even though the prototype wasn’t made of ceramic, the basic geometry of the iThrone naturally amplifies the sound and directs it towards you.
I’m not a supporter of cute or clever design if it lacks functionality or if another product does it better, and I love the idea of a dock that doesn’t use energy and is also a beautiful design object, whether its cradling your iPhone or not.
Check out the pitch after the jump:
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