A hair-dryer concept in the Braun tradition — a calm, soft-pebble volume with nothing on it that doesn't need to be there. Capacitive touch control, an integrated temperature sensor and a new vortex air path, wrapped in a single gloss-white shell. Surfaced in Rhinoceros and lit in KeyShot.
Vortex is a personal study of what a Braun hair dryer could be if it were designed today against the principles the brand is known for. The brief I set myself was simple: an everyday object that earns its place on the shelf — quiet, honest, and reduced to the essential — and that still feels like an object of desire.
The body is a single soft-pebble volume. There are no fan-grille flourishes and no decorative seams; the only graphics are the wordmark and a thin warm accent line that lights up in use. A recessed touch panel on the handle replaces the usual cluster of mechanical sliders, and a small temperature sensor sits at the air intake to hold the heat steady rather than just dumping it.
Surfaced in Rhinoceros — NURBS for the primary shell and split-lines, a touch of SubD for the soft nose and handle transitions — with the hero stills lit and rendered in KeyShot. The bathroom scene was composited from the same model into a real interior to test how the object reads in everyday life.
Every line on the body answers to how the dryer is held and used. The handle tucks a soft-touch grip pad where the fingers fall; the controls live in one calm window; and the nozzle was studied in two configurations — a directional concentrator and an open vortex outlet — to compare airflow character without changing the silhouette.
An object of everyday life should also be an object of desire. Dropping the same model into a real bathroom backplate was the honest test — does it still look considered when it sits next to the taps, the plants and the morning light, rather than floating on a studio sweep?
The gloss-white finish, the single warm line and the quiet front mask were tuned to read as calm and premium in that setting — at home on the counter, not shouting from it.
A single presentation board pulls the story together — touch control, temperature sensor and the new vortex technology, framed by the two ideas the whole concept hangs on.
Rhinoceros — the shell was built as a clean surface package: NURBS for the primary body and split-lines, SubD for the soft nose and the handle-to-body transition, so the single-volume read stays intact from every angle.
KeyShot — used for the studio hero stills and the turntable. The gloss-white plastic, the soft-touch grip and the illuminated accent line were all set up as physical materials and emissive details rather than post effects.
Compositing — the bathroom scene places the same geometry into a real interior backplate, matched for camera, lighting and grade, so the concept can be judged the way it would actually be encountered.
Drag horizontally to rotate the turntable. Modelled in Rhinoceros, rendered in Light Tracer.
If you're developing a consumer appliance or personal-care product — from first concept to production-ready CAD — let's talk. Send a brief and we'll come back within two working days.
Request a quote