Logitech recently dropped the MX Master 4 Developer Edition and Creator Edition, the first special editions in the 20+ year MX history. Both are built on the core MX Master 4 performance architecture of the MX Master 4, but the key differences lie in the visual aesthetics and printed Easter eggs. We spoke to Logitech industrial designer Hugo Bourguignon about the design process behind them, from the first sketches to the final production parts.
Special editions are a first for MX. Where did the idea come from?
From our community. Developers and creators have made MX the center of their desk setups, reviews and videos, and they share it with millions of people. Our brief was simple: give something back. MX Master 4 was already a new design in every field, from CMF to industrial design to UX, so we didn’t want to change the product. We wanted to celebrate the people using it.
The shape of MX Master 4 was off-limits. How do you design something new when you can’t touch the form?
You treat the surface as your canvas. The form, the haptics, the Actions Ring and the MagSpeed wheel stay untouched, so everything we wanted to say had to come from color, graphics and finish. Our moodboard came down to three axes: performance signal, action and bold graphics. And we wrote one rule across the board: be the user, feel the user.
What did the first explorations look like?
Loud. We drew directly over renders of MX Master 4 in Illustrator and tried everything: typography, icon patterns, real lines of code, contour lines, rulers, calibration charts. Our first ideas covered the entire shell. The turning point came when we put them on real MX Master 4 units and picked them up. What looks right zoomed in on a monitor gets much smaller in your hand. From there, most of the work was about removing things.
Printing graphics on a mouse sounds simple. What constraints did manufacturing bring?
Quite a few, and they shaped the design as much as the moodboard did:
- One color at a time: Each color is printed separately, so every extra color adds a pass and a risk of misalignment. That’s why each edition keeps two body tones and one accent.
- Flat artwork, curved part: Graphics are drawn flat but land on a doubly curved shell, so we built the line work around the real surfaces of the top case.
- Contrast and durability: Every line had to read at real size, on graphite and pale grey, and survive a hand resting on it all day.
- A shared language with the factory: We handed over a full graphics spec with a color part map, then matched final colors on real parts with our manufacturing partners.
The two editions look very different. How did you find the right language for each community?
We started from what each of them already looks at every day. For developers, that’s code syntax, technical drawings and coordinate systems. We borrowed that language, then refactored until the whole program fit in one line: {Hello, World}. Graphite, pale grey and one green accent. For creators, it’s the artboard: selections, rulers, calibration charts, timelines. That edition is pale grey, graphite and a vivid red, with graphics that echo what MX Master 4 does for them, like haptic timeline scrubbing.
What did the team learn from this project, and what made it fun?
That a constraint can be the best brief you get. With the shape locked, every mark had to earn its place, and we learned to treat graphics as industrial design: something you validate in your hand and with the factory, not just on a screen. It was also a lot of fun. It’s not every day you get to hide references on a flagship mouse, or design a product in the same tool our creators use, for the very people who inspired it.
To learn more about the design process on the MX Master 4 special edition, check out this session.
Hugo is an industrial designer at Logitech and a hands-on maker who starts every new shape with a block, a saw and a pencil. He loves hiking, photography, scuba diving and building anything he can’t buy, sewing machine included.
