industrial designer creating growth
industrial designer creating growth
Wham-O made a lot of products for sliding down snowy hills. I had my team create a map that showed snowy hill products vs. snowy flatland products. Guess what? We made almost nothing for the flatland folks despite the fact that this represents most snowy places. Next, I found an inventor submission called the Snowball-zooka. It was not much look at, a couple of milk jugs duct taped together with a slingshot. Strangely, it would shoot a snowball 30 feet. We put the two notions together and created a new sub-brand called Arctic Force that has sold millions and is still thriving 10 years later.
The discovery that flat land snow play is an underserved behavior and that competitive products tend to overemphasize hill play activities.
Sketches to establish early design direction.
We needed to determine the functionality of the device before integrating the industrial design and it was a diverse team effort to create what became a simple, intuitive operation.
An early concept which started to encapsulate the feeling we were after. We ended up with a language that was less soft and more fractal, more appropriate for a winter toy.