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Former HTC designer Scott Croyle has left Razer's Nextbit
We haven't yet seen Razer's debut smartphone, but the team behind it is bidding farewell to an exec that played a crucial role back in its early days. Scott Croyle, who quit HTC as the Senior Vice President of Design, has left Nextbit as of September after a three-year run. His new gig? Going back to his design consultancy roots with the formation of Attic, a San Francisco-based studio covering hard goods (which obviously include consumer electronics), soft goods and furniture. Croyle is joined by former One & Co colleague Jony Ive Daniel Hundt, who was the lead designer of the Incredible, Incredible 2, Desire 816, Desire 820 and more. Prior to HTC's acquisition, One & Co was also known for designing Microsoft's Arc Keyboard plus Arc Mouse, as well as the original Amazon Kindle.
HTC's former lead designer joins Fitbit
If you've been following the news of HTC's former chief smartphone designer Jonah Becker, we finally have an update regarding his latest whereabouts. As of today, Becker is Fitbit's VP of Industrial Design -- a newly created position at the fitness tracking specialist, interestingly enough. This announcement comes just 11 days after Becker's departure from the Taiwanese mobile giant, who has since appointed Daniel Hundt as his successor, while Claude Zellweger continues to lead design efforts for the company's other connected products. Becker's predecessor, Scott Croyle, is currently VP Product and Design at Nextbit (and we're sensing a trend with company names here).
The man behind HTC's hardware design is leaving the company
If you've used any HTC device in the last five years, chances are you've witnessed Scott Croyle's handiwork first-hand. Unfortunately, his time at the company is coming to an end as HTC has confirmed that Croyle is moving on to other to-be-determined projects. Croyle, who joined the company in 2008 as part of the One & Co acquisition, has been directly involved with building HTC's flagship devices ever since. Now, he'll be handing over the baton of responsibility to Jonah Becker, who's been Croyle's right-hand man in the studio. The move will be a gradual transition, as we're told that he will stick around in a consulting role for a while to finish up his projects (M9 anyone?).
HTC acquires design firm One & Co
It'd already been known that HTC got a little help from the boys and girls at San Fran-based One & Co in designing its beautiful, WinMo-defying TouchFLO 3D user interface along with the Touch Diamond on which it premiered; apparently, HTC likes the result so much that it's snapping the privately-held firm right off the market. One & Co's expertise certainly isn't limited to phones -- its clients span from Coca-Cola to Adidas, Dell, and Palm -- and interestingly, HTC has decided that the move won't spell the end of the design consultancy, so if you were hoping to get your hands on an HTC-designed K2 snowboard, you might just have a shot. We're told that the injection of fresh thought that found its way into the Diamond will ultimately filter its way through HTC's entire lineup, which we're taking to mean Android- and WinMo-based devices alike -- and sorry, G1, but if this means that we can eventually land a Google-powered set with a giant display and some glossy facets on its rear, you know you're getting eBayed right quick. Update: We've just received a correction from HTC -- One & Co was actually not involved in the creation of TouchFLO 3D, just the Diamond's hardware. Our apologies!
