DESIGN TALK: Stolp

Design Talk means taking some time to meet the faces behind a brand. Today, we would like you to get to know the people and the mission of Stolp, a Belgian mission-driven digital wellbeing brand. Julien Yee and Matthias Vanhoutteghem founded Stolp in 2018, with the mission of empowering humans to take action towards more time well spent in the age of smartphones.

Stolp, a signal-stopping digital detox device, is inspired by the shape of a butter dish. “A butter dish is a natural fit for the dinner table. Having your phone around during dinner doesn’t affect your relations in a good way,” the founders say, “so we wanted to create a tool that allows you to disconnect from the digital world to reconnect, around the table and everywhere it matters.”

 

 

Research shows that even when you pay attention to a task and avoid the temptation of checking your phone, the mere presence of your device still reduces your cognitive capacity and your ability to focus. When your phone is within reach, you have less attention to spare, whether you’re trying to focus on work or friends and family.

“The average person spends more than 15 years of their life on a smartphone. We believe you can reduce that, first and foremost by being more aware of how you use that time and actively disconnect on a daily basis to get back in the driver’s seat,” Stolp founder and CEO, Julien Yee, says. “In 2017 I was the typical millennial,” he says, “I was hard working and always glued to my smartphone.” One evening he and Stolp co-founder Matthias Vanhoutteghem ran out of battery. “We began thinking about our dependency on smartphones, and we built our business from there. Stolp originated from personal frustration.”

 

 

At the time, Yee was still working in the financial sector, and Vanhoutteghem was still active as an architect. “Between those busy jobs, we got together to brainstorm.” The result? Stolp. So how does it work, exactly? It’s simple:

• Stolp is a radiation-free Faraday cage. Once you choose to hide your device inside, you are fully unplugged. No signal will come in or go out of your Stolp case.
• Stolp is a visual reminder to unplug. Set it down where you need it most, and place your phone in it whenever you need to switch off and unwind.
• You can unplug up to 6 smartphones at once. For more focus, more togetherness, more time doing what we love.

DECOVRY loves digital detox, and we stock Stolp cases in three contemporary, relaxing colours: laid black, pacific white and serene emerald — and in a set of all three.

 

Source: Stolp