Start Your Friday. Have you ever wondered why car keys look like car keys? Of course, they did change their appearance over the years, from their humble beginnings to becoming sophisticated access systems.

Originally, you needed to insert the key into a key hole in the door of your car and turn it to unlock the door. And then you inserted the same key into another key hole, situated close to the steering wheel, this way you unlocked the steering column and made the electric contact that would start the engine. Not to forget that there was another key hole for the boot and one for the fuel filler…

Nowadays you might still use your key the old fashioned way to start your car, but for all the other access needs your key has grown a bit bigger in order to accommodate a few buttons and a battery. As a matter of fact, it has grown into a small black box, which does actually look a little bit uninspired. The car manufacturers add their logos to these small black boxes so they look different from other small black boxes. Take away that logo and you might not even know if it’s a Porsche or a Volkswagen!

When we were designing ‘Friday’, we also had a good look at the keys. We evaluated the way a car key is used (i.e. when to use a ‘press the button’ system and when to use an approximation switch) and we even had a look at how to deal with the need of a battery.

Most of all however, we wanted to get rid of the boring black box and come up with something slightly more like a piece of jewellery.