As a product designer at KiwiCo for 4 years, I worked on a range of hands-on projects. For 2 years I owned the product development from brainstorming to production for Doodle Crate, a monthly subscription line of art & design projects for 9-16 year olds. The biggest challenge for the product line was to design a project that allowed for creativity and open ended results, but still had a marketable finished product.
Here is an example of one of my favorite projects I created for this line:
DESIGN PROCESS
IDEATION
Every month, we pick an art technique or theme to focus on. For this crate, we started by exploring molding and casting techniques. Some of my initial project ideas included plaster casting for game pieces, press molding clay trinkets, and pour molding concrete dishes. Once we narrowed it down to candle molding, I had to think about ways to construct a mold that was both easy to manufacture and simple for the kid to make.
PLAY TESTING
Throughout our prototyping process, we held multiple play testing sessions to make sure the project was engaging, educational, and achievable.
Our first iteration consisted of paper molds that had a paper base to cap the bottom. This was quite difficult for the kids to fold and seal, causing the wax to leak from the bottom resulting in short candles.
We removed the folded base from the paper mold, and used a thin layer of wax to seal the bottom. This new technique allowed kids to create consistent shaped candles.
Product Sourcing
Once the product was tested and ready for sourcing, I created a detailed spec sheet along with dielines for each component. I then worked closely with the sourcing team and vendors to find the best materials for the projects.
example of the dielines (drawn with adobe illustrator):
Once the project materials were sourced and verified, I worked with the editorial team to create step by step instructions along with inspirational content to encourage technique exploration. For each of the kits, we also created video content to show the process and finished project.
After the kits are sent out, we receive customer feedback for the projects and overall experience. The candle making crate was one of the highest scoring crates for the Doodle Crate product line.
Check out some other Doodle Crate products I designed!
