One of the most curious aspects about affordable mini-computer the Raspberry Pi was that it came sans case, inspiring a generation of computer-philes to develop their own homebrew cases – often out of LEGO – if they didn’t settle for a third-party case. Now, the creators of the microcomputer have announced that they have developed their own official case, and it’s looking very sleek.
Gordon Hollingworth, Director of Software for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, spoke about the process on the official Raspberry Pi blog:
Two and a half years ago, I found myself sitting in a car with Eben Upton about three days into my new job at Raspberry Pi. We discussed – among other things – everything we wanted to do with the Raspberry Pi hardware and with the products around the Pi.
One of the things we discussed was an official Raspberry Pi case. We thought that it would be great to create something affordable, but with the kind of real beauty and design that our products try to encompass.
So to this end we began the search for a design company who were capable of understanding our requirements and had their eyes firmly fixated on creating a product that achieved those aims.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation hired award-winning design firm Kinneir Dufort to create the case, honing ideas from the following three prototypes:
The final design, with its gentle curve and simple colour scheme, fits the Raspberry Pi, in both form and as a representation of its functionality, perfectly.
The Raspberry Pi blog does a marvellous job of outlining the design and build process for the case, so be sure to check it out. The official case is priced £6 ($9), and is available from the Raspberry Pi Swag Store website.
