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Project Overview
Globally, many members of our human family have become digitally addicted whilst tangled in cables from dinging device management madness. What if there was a way to trade unhealthy immersion and tangle for human connection and integrated spatial harmony?
Organisation
Team
Design Lead - Victor Bejan Co-founder - Alistair Ramsay Co-founder - Simon Weeks
Project Brief
Stress turned to inspiration during the COVID-19 lockdown as two friends realised they needed help managing their crafty kids’ screen time. The result is LOOTBOX. “Like all parents around the world, we had a big problem,” said Al Ramsay. “Hours of online schooling combined with extra recreational screen time was the tipping point for our kids – they were changing, and we were concerned. ” “COVID accelerated an existing issue,” added Simon Weeks. “Like many parents, we’ve seen our kids’ behaviour deteriorate as they spend too much time on these highly addictive screens. It didn’t feel right, we had to do something.” Ramsay and Weeks discussed a simple idea – a lockbox for devices, but as we learnt in “The Social Dilemma” (Netflix) a simple lockbox is not enough. In addition to being smart and secure, we knew the solution had to blend seamlessly into small spaces and habitual user routine.
Project Innovation/Need
LOOTBOX is the first smart, secure, multi-device charger with fluid user functionality and a refined minimalist aesthetic. Living with the prototype allowed us to achieve a deep level of product synthesis; cable routing, lock functionality, soft-touch device storage and venting effortlessly blend together within a carefully considered value-engineering framework. This creates a harmoniously uplifting psycho-spatial effect that is not currently not found in the market landscape. The resulting object-user relationship resonates as collaborative as opposed to authoritarian. This enables the physical boundary to fluidly support the creation of a predictable life pattern for families to live by – a kind of inhale, exhale of a balanced digital life together. Practically, what does this mean? Less time tangled in the web and more time for meaningful connection.
Design Challenge
Function Nailing LOOTBOX’s architecture to work for small cluttered spaces, a diverse range of users and devices of many sizes was a fundamental design challenge to resolve. Cost Being a humbly self-funded project, we had to figure out a way to achieve a high-quality product presence within a tight prototype/production budget. Value-engineering and strategic design allowed for this to become a reality. COVID-19 This project has completely unfolded within the context of a heavy international lockdown. This created barriers around collaboration, prototype development and supply chain. We stealthily navigated these challenges to launch a global Kickstarter campaign that reached 50% funding within 4 days of launch with no paid advertisements (campaign still running).
Sustainability
Value Engineering Every part is designed to perform robustly with as little material usage and assembly energy as possible. Give Back Delatite Studios is a social enterprise, purposefully diverting profits to kids' health NFPs. We are carefully considering how any success we have can be used to contribute to the "Next" of how we sustainably create and look after each other in the future.
Tags
Product Design - Concept
This award celebrates creativity and innovation for either a product design at conceptual stage - an early sample or model of a product that has not reached the manufacture stage nor available to the market.
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