The second project I was involved in for Roccat was the Kone Pro and Kone Pro Air.
Continuing the flagship “Kone” series which has a specific ergonomic shape that the users love.

Ergonomics
This mouse is based on the original shape but got slightly increased in size and grip adjusted to look and feel a bit more simplified so it fits a broader range of user’s hands and grip styles.

Goal
In short, the goal was to create a professional lightweight gaming mouse targeting Esports and competitive gamers.

Trend
We saw two main gaming mouse trends. Toy and tool.

First, there were some competitors who were simplifying and reducing the traditional loud “gaming” design details and RGB keep the focus on the main functions and make it feel more like a tool than a toy.

While others kept doing their products even louder, having hexagon holes just to make the mouse as light as possible disregarding some parts of the user's needs like comfort, cleaning, etc.

Our take
We wanted to create something that was a tool for professionals but still had a core of the Roccat gaming DNA. Give it some much-needed gaming emotions and RGB but in a more reduced and mature way to have the best of both worlds.

Design Overview
In short. Clean line textures on the sides. To give it character, direction, and some extra refined details without being too bold. It was very important that the grip texture didn’t affect the grip feel so it needed to be very subtle.

We wanted to communicate precision and a lightweight feel. One way we did this was to design and fit an slim walled anodized aluminum scroll wheel instead of a large traditional plastic core+rubber.

Instead of having exposed hexagon holes to make it look lightweight, we had hexagons without exposing the holes from the outside. Translucent plastic together with a gradient painting to show off the underlying hexagon structure without you needing to feel it.

This also was a great way of showing the subtle RGB that was placed where you have the main function, the main clicks. We did this without additional parts for light guides to save weight.

Clean cut in pill-shape around the scroll wheel without split-line to get a modern surface transition. Placed where it won’t affect the ergonomics.
Same details in the bottom, around these buttons. Matching the design element of the multi -media of the Vulcan TKL etc.

To look modern, and refined, and give the feeling of being optimized we also had a laser etched bottom label area instead of the traditional label sticker.

Branding wise we added a chrome logo to create more of a premium look and also make the logo catch the light more than a basic silkscreen printing.