Korean industrial design student Sungwoo Choi designed a Nothing turntable concept called Turntable (1) — an unofficial project imagining what a record player by Nothing might look like. Rather than reaching for the warm wood-and-brass vocabulary most turntables default to, Choi built the concept entirely from Nothing’s own visual language: transparent acrylic, exposed mechanics, and a naming convention borrowed directly from the brand’s product lineup. The result reads less like a fan render and more like a genuine extension of an existing product family.
Naming the object mattered as much as designing it. Calling the concept Turntable (1) follows the exact structure Nothing uses across its real lineup — Phone (1), Ear (1), Ear (stick) — a naming logic that implies sequence, a roadmap, a brand committed to returning to the category. Choi didn’t title this as a one-off exercise. He titled it as though a Turntable (2) was already assumed.
Transparency does structural work here, not decorative work. The platter sits inside a clear acrylic ring, and the tonearm mounts on a circular base wrapped in concentric translucent layers — a detail that reads more like precision instrumentation than consumer audio gear. The brand’s entire product identity has been built on making internal mechanics visible rather than hidden behind an opaque shell, and Choi translates that logic fluently into a format where watching the mechanism move only deepens the ritual of playing a record.
A recessed control module handles the two variables every turntable needs. Size (7-inch or 12-inch records) and Speed (33 or 45 RPM) sit in rounded, labeled dials with the same matter-of-fact clarity you’d expect from lab calibration equipment rather than home electronics — a deliberate rejection of the retro dial aesthetic most turntables lean on.
Volume gets its own dedicated ritual, built around what Choi calls the brand’s “Glyph Interface.” A large dial, framed by a clear acrylic trim ring, sits beside a small dot-matrix display panel. “I placed glyphs around the volume dial to provide immediate visual feedback on sound levels,” Choi tells urdesign, extending the same interface language to power and playback status, platter lighting that reacts to the sound spectrum, and a set of secondary modes — Bluetooth, leveling guides, recording status, even a customizable GIF display.
The Size and Speed dials do more than set two values — they show you what’s already been set. Choi built both with a convex lens effect, a detail meant to make the numbers easier to read at a glance while improving how the dial physically feels to turn. It’s a small mechanical decision standing in for a larger design instinct: every control on Turntable (1) is built to confirm its own status back to the user, not just to receive an input.
The platter itself absorbs two different transparent materials, not one. “By using two types of transparent materials, I left one side clear to showcase the internal structure, while the side edge is finished with a matte texture to softly diffuse light,” Choi explains — a distinction invisible in a single render but central to how the object is meant to read in person, structure on one plane, ambient glow on the other.
None of this makes this transparent record player design real, and that distinction still matters. Choi has no official relationship with Nothing, and Turntable (1) exists purely as a personal design exercise — though functionally, it doesn’t stop at aesthetics. The concept supports both amplifier connectivity for traditional analog listening and built-in speakers with Bluetooth for a self-contained modern setup, treating the two listening modes as equally valid rather than forcing a choice between them.
A comparable instinct — taking an established form of hardware and rebuilding it entirely around a specific, deeply researched physical interaction — drives Chaewon Lee’s TUNO, a ring-shaped wearable DJ controller built from mapped hand movements rather than inherited convention. Both projects treat familiar audio equipment as a category still worth questioning from scratch, not a solved problem waiting for a fresh coat of paint.
The real test of a concept like this isn’t whether Nothing ever builds it — it’s whether the visual language holds up as a genuine product logic rather than a skin applied after the fact. Turntable (1) passes that test more convincingly than most brand-inspired renders manage, precisely because it argues for transparency as function, not just finish. Whether that argument is strong enough to outlast its own novelty as a render is the question a real production run would actually answer.