Our assignment was to create a line of hand tools for a company that was not known to previously make them.
Our group was assigned Ikea, and had to fit our hand tools into Ikea’s brand language and current product line.
Mission Statement:
‘To create a better everyday life for the many people’
With the idea of helping everyday people do complicated tasks, like assemble furniture, being central to Ikea’s brand, we knew we had to make our hand tools as accessible as possible. We set out to create a set of simple hand tools that could be used by everyday people.
User Personas
Mackenzie
Busy Lifestyle
Lives in Cleveland, OH
Buys furniture so she can build it herself at home.
Lives far away from town, so doesn’t want to drive into town for basic tools
Connor
Laid back lifestyle.
Lives on a college campus.
College dorm is furnished with Ikea furniture.
Grabbed a toolbox when he picked out his bookshelf, out of convenience.
Market Benchmarking
Using my partner’s jigsaw as an example, we plotted out where we wanted out product to fall on the graph of Aesthetic vs. Price. Seeing that there were other brands creating the tools we were creating at reasonable price points allowed us to really focus on the aesthetics of our tools.
Ideation
The three main design features we wanted to include on my assigned tool: the hand grinder were simple colors, wireless charging and user accessibility. I went with a warm orange for the color, included wireless charging on the top of the grinder, and made the handle ambidextrous for maximum usability.
Three-View
The handle would have three connecting points. The right and left for right and left handed users, and the rear for added stability. The kit the grinder comes with would include two of these handles. The grinder also features a wireless charger on the top that is compatible with Ikea’s wireless charging stands.
This is an advertisement that I created using KeyShot that shows our team’s products fitting in Ikea’s advertisement language.