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Want to design your own smartphone? Thanks to Nothing, now you can

The Nothing Phone 2a face down on a table.
Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The Nothing Phone 2a launched earlier this month to quite positive reviews. If you’re in the market for a budget Android phone that looks good, performs well, and has a solid camera, it’s one of the better options available. Now, Nothing is inviting you to help it design a new version of the phone.

On March 20, Nothing uploaded a video to its YouTube channel announcing the company’s “Community Edition Project.” In short, it’s a new initiative from Nothing that’s giving you the opportunity to design a brand new version of the Phone 2a.

YOU can design our next product! | The Community Edition Project

What exactly does that mean? As explained by Nothing CEO Carl Pei, “Co-creation means creating something together. And as a product company, for the first we’re inviting our community to create a new variant of the Phone 2a together with us. So that includes everything from the design of the product to the packaging to the wallpapers, and also the marketing campaigns.”

When Nothing says this is a “community” project, it really means it. Anyone can throw their hat in the ring to help Nothing design its next version of the Nothing Phone 2a, and you’ll have your chance to do so in just a few short days.

Submissions for The Community Edition Project will officially open on March 26. That begins stage one of the project, where you can submit your own hardware design for the next Phone 2a variant. The winner of the hardware design will “be given the opportunity to collaborate with our [Nothing’s] London design team to bring their idea to life.” Next is the wallpaper design stage in May, where you can design “a series of wallpapers to seamlessly integrate with the winning hardware design.” The winner of the wallpaper stage will have their wallpaper collections pre-installed on the Nothing Phone 2a Community Edition.

An example of a community-designed Nothing Phone 2a.
Nothing

The packaging design phase kicks off in June, where community members will have the chance to design retail packaging for the phone based on the winning design and wallpapers. Finally, in July, you’ll be able to submit “a creative proposal for the marketing of the Phone 2 Community Edition.”

All of the hardware and software specs for the Community Edition will remain exactly as they are on the current Nothing Phone 2a. However, the chance for anyone to submit a new hardware design for the phone is pretty cool. Nothing shared an example of a community-designed Phone 2a variant (seen above), and it looks considerably different from the current Nothing Phone 2a. It looks like Nothing is willing to go in pretty different design directions for the Community Edition, and that’s encouraging to see.

If you want to submit your own designs for the Phone 2a Community Edition, submissions begin on the Nothing website on March 26.

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Joe Maring
Section Editor, Mobile
Joe Maring is the Section Editor for Digital Trends' Mobile team, leading the site's coverage for all things smartphones…
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