Conor Doyle
Designer
Conor Doyle
Object
Polaroid Supercolor 635CL
Lens
Zaha Hadid
Outcome
Supercolor Hardline
The book
Contents
01 · Introduction
This is not nostalgia.
The brief asked for a redesign of the Polaroid Supercolor 635CL by one of twenty iconic designers. The end product remains a 600-series Polaroid camera, the feeling, the styling and the form follow new design languages.
“This isn’t just a tribute, it’s an exploration of how classic design can evolve.”
Approach
Fluidity and dynamism, held in the hand.
The objective was to view a Supercolor 635CL through the lens of Zaha Hadid: fast forms first, then develop the feeling and finally build the product.
02 · Desk research
Land’s camera. Hadid’s curve.
Polaroid was founded in 1937 on the idea that an industry could sit between science and art. The Supercolor 635CL is the 1984 box that still carries that idea: a 600-series body, a sliding close-up lens, and a film cartridge that brings its own battery.
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03 · Communication
Sketching, Painting and Building
Hadid had a very expressive way of sketching. She worked very fast, focusing on feeling and flow over any precision. She also took a very deconstructivist approach to painting, and finally she had such an elegant way of working with materials in architecture due to the developments in digital modelling.
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04 · Exploration
Take the 635CL apart before you argue with it.
The original is injection-moulded, draft-aware, and held together with snap fits rather than a handful of screws. That makes it cheap to assemble and hard to repair. The redesign keeps that shell logic. The insides stay Polaroid. The outside has to earn a new silhouette.
05 · Conceptualise
Three directions one answer.
Tonality, dynamism, and fluidity were pushed in parallel. Each one got sketches, study models, and CAD. Tonality kept Polaroid’s box almost intact. Dynamism and fluidity pushed the shell further toward Hadid before the freeze.
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06 · Concept freeze
Hardline.
From the first sketches the direction wanted something people would talk about. Fast, expressive sketching came first. Detailing came second. The winner is Supercolor Hardline: a shell redesign that keeps the 635CL’s snap-fit logic and changes the architecture around it.
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Design decisions
A shell, not a new mechanism.
The project does not redesign what the camera can do. It redesigns how it sits. Snap fits and friction fits replace screws, the same way the 635CL does. Flash and lens stay at Polaroid scale even when the body wants to grow. Some parts shift just enough to rebalance the face.
The empty shell can feel unfinished. That is the trade. The point was a new aesthetic for a camera people already know how to use.
07 · Promotion
A camera that can stand in a gallery and still leave the house.
The hero shots show the Hardline as a sculpture, the context shots reveal it belongs in the real world. Finally the product is labelled: Supercolor Hardline.
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Close
Instant meets icon.
Supercolor Hardline is a hypothetical vision, one Polaroid, one architect, and a shell that had to justify itself from the first sketch to the last print.