You know the Nike FuelBand as a sleek black band that’s a half-step removed from a Livestrong bracelet. That wasn’t always the case though. Some looked totally different from the finished product, like this early mockup that basically got the FuelBand off the ground.
Austin Carr was out at the Nike campus to report for Fast Company’s Nike profile and got access to a bunch of prototypes: “I saw a number of early FuelBand prototypes, from concepts designed for the leg or upper arm to ones with e-ink displays that resembled an Amazon Kindle screen. There were hundreds of prototypes imagined throughout the process.”
The early and crucial one was this crude green and black band, which is the first prototype CEO Mark parker saw. He was impressed enough by it that he basically sent the team out to build it on the spot, at which point Astro design EVP Kyle Swen told Carr, the engineers saw the mock ups and “they were like, ‘No fucking way.” [FastCo Design]