HOOC RING
A pair of rings that opens cans and beer bottles by their friendly hooks so now fingers and nails can rest at ease.
PROJECT INTRO
OVERVIEW
Hooc Ring is designed through core perspective of industrial design, problem-solving, and practice of jewelry design, jewelry wax modeling and metal melding, to them able to replace traditional can/beer openers while its function is hidden in the fashion appearance.
MY ROLE: INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
Design research, designing, CAD modeling, rendering, prototyping.
DESIGN TOOL
Solidworks, Keyshot, Photoshop, Fusion 360.
PROJECT DURATION
Mar 2018 - May 2018, 6 weeks
TEAM
Individual project.
LOCATION
Brooklyn, NY, USA.
KEY TASK
Address a daily issue that affects fingers or nails for people who encounter inconvenience using their nails or struggle with fingers on a task.
DESIGN PRINCIPLE
-
User friendly
-
Functionality to increase value
-
Low cost
-
Mass production
-
High durability
-
Aesthetics
PROJECT GOAL
-
User friendly
-
Functionality to increase value
-
Low cost
-
Mass production
-
High durability
TARGET GROUP
Initially targeted on women and men who have long nails and are regular customers in nail salon shops. The actual target group extends to anyone who likes wearing rings and encounter difficulty opening cans and beers without tools.
GUIDING QUESION
What are some daily issues that make people struggle with fingers and long nails? What approach can be applied to address the problem?
KEY WORD
-
User friendly
-
Long nail
-
Finger
-
Ring
-
Can opener
RESEARCH
KEY ISSUE
-
The longer the nail, the easier to break
-
The shorter the nail, the more pressure on fingers
SAMPLE STUDY
-
Lack of portability
-
Easy to lose
-
Lack of aesthetics
-
Single functionality
INTERVIEW CONCLUSION
-
Portal ones were mostly lost.
-
Attaching on key rings could be a way but not many used a key ring or had this habit. Life style is hard to change.
-
Portal ones are appreciated more than huge ones.
-
More often keys are used in case they can't find the openers at the moment.
-
​Most of them do not tend to buy one because it is just a can opener and not needed often. A waste of money.
A can opener does not necessarily need to remain in the traditional design concept. Rather, it should be satisfying as long as it has the following characteristics: portability, prominent, multi-functionality, wearability that requires no secondary equipment for attachment.
IDEATION
BRACELET OR RING
A bracelet or a ring is a perfect product that must contain aesthetics. Rather than the standard of beauty from other objects like pens and rulers, that of rings/bracelets is higher, which means it'll be easier to reach higher standard of beauty from the start if the object is a ring or a bracelet.
Compared to rings, bracelets requests harder body engagement or more actions from taking it off to using it to open can/beer. Hence I moved on with the idea of making a functional ring.
DESIGN
PROTOTYPE (ROUND ONE)
Super glue and chipboard made ring with a hook to catch can tab. Structure, operation, and mechanism are the first to test out. The easier the operation, the better the design outcome.
The new way demands motions on one's wrist and forearm muscle, the body parts of which naturally get more muscle groups and force than an index finger. The more muscle force granted, the less struggle needed. Why keep bothering nails and fingers?
PROTOTYPE (ROUND TWO)
More accurate ring shapes, hardness, thickness, width, and hook shapes, sharpness, tilting angles, and sizes are in need.
What if one puts a hand with the ring in a pocket and pulls it out after? What if the hand touches other parts of body? Will the hook ruin clothing? Will the hook scratch and hurt one's skin by accident? Safety is important.
PROTOTYPE (ROUND THREE)
Aesthetics is essential. Dynamic shape and details of the ring are carved out in a elegant style. For another style that is completely the opposite, a second ring is made.
Ring is wearable finger decoration, categorized in jewelry, the core of which is beauty and style, shapes, the lines, texture, colors, and etc.
FINAL OUTCOME
A series for more choices.
A pair for a couple.
NEXT STEP
WHAT COULD'VE BEEN DONE BETTER
WHAT'RE EXPECTED TO LEARN NEXT
Material. Due to budget limit, the material used for metal casting is brass, a base metal that is unhealthy to skin. However, regular materials used for rings such as gold and silver don't fit this project, simply because of poor durability. If the material was replaced with compound metal containing stainless steel and carbon fiber, it'd have been way better for both aesthetics and durability.
Mass production for asymmetrical rings. Since both rings are asymmetrical, the difficulty level of mass production increases accordingly. It is important to understand development partners to keep the whole industry fluent. So how would development team handle complex shapes and patterns in mass production is expected to be learnt.