No this isn’t a modular Project Ara phone – its grid-based design was inspired Manet and Mondrian

If you think about it, the back of your phone is really its defining visual element. Virtually every phone looks identical on the front, but flip it over and you’re faced with an empty canvas that most phone designers use to set their phones apart. Designers do this using a few proven techniques, namely color palettes, and the shape/placement of the camera lenses. The Polychromatic Mobile Phone ups this ante.

Using patterns and light to define how unique your phone looks, the Polychromatic Mobile Phone comes with a rather Mondrian-inspired grid of pearlescent swatches that change colors based on whether it’s exposed to UV light or not. At first glance, the Polychromatic phone instantly reminds one of Google’s Project Ara… however as Google quietly killed that endeavor citing complex issues, the team at Tecno Camon looked at the Ara’s distinct design (courtesy NewDealDesign) and noticed how incredibly captivating that grid pattern was. Combining that with inspiration from French painter Edouard Manet, who brought light into painting and is credited with creating the Impressionist art movement, Tecno Camon created the Polychromatic Mobile Phone’s design – a striking grid-based rear design that’s also UV light-responsive, changing colors/tints when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Designer: Tecno Camon 19 Pro Design Team

The Polychromatic Mobile Phone looks like a plain white grid when in normal light, but as soon as it’s exposed to any form of ultraviolet light From the sun or a tube light, the colors dramatically shift, giving the phone a wash of pink and blue. “Multi-color photoisomer technology, which means the cell phone battery cover appears white when it is not exposed to UV light under interior area,“ mentions the Tecno Camon design team. ”When the mobile phone is taken outdoors and exposed to sunlight, the color of the mobile phone battery cover shows different color blocks.”

Achieving this unique technique took 500 different iterations, and the final outcome was the result of a painstaking 22-step process performed on the nanometer level. This process breaks through the technical limitations of what’s really possible with smartphone design. Having a phone’s color and finish react to UV light is surely no small feat, and as a result, you get a phone that transcends contemporary smartphone design, bordering into technological art!

The Polychromatic Mobile Phone is a winner of the A’ Design Award for the year 2022.