The Blade Blade is a merging of 2 already known concepts int he world of cutting blades. For those who have experienced the need to swap and change between a regular sized cutting blade to a much larger option, The Blade Blade easily provides this option. Targetted for users between the ages of 16 all the way through to people in their late 40's, with an interest in arts or just require the use of cutting blades in their daily lives. The Blade Blade provides a much more modern alternative to the cutting blade range.
The main attraction of The Blade Blade is obviously its ability to provide the option of a large and small cutting blade width. The smaller cutting balde can be used while placed in the dock of the larger cutter, or pulled out to be used by itself. The Blade Blade also has rubbery grips positioned in areas where users place most pressure with their hands and fingers. This is to provide the user with much comfort while using the cutting blades.
The Blade Blade also aims to educate users to break off the ends of the blades in a much safer manner. This is done by the introduction of symbols painted into the end cover as well as the underside of the front edge for both the mini cutter as well as the larger one. It uses mirrorable symbols and or images such as a heart shape or a yin and yang symbol. When brought together to form the shape, the user then knows that the position in which the covers are held is correct, and they then can proceed to break the blade forwards, in the case of the heart, breakin a heart as it were.
6 comments:
A Blade in a blade, small to large, large to small in just a flick of a finger.
Being a industrial design student having much assignments which involves much of physical work, such as cutting and scoring i think this hand held tool would be a must in every students tool box. Having the options to switch from a large blade for cutting to a smaller blade for detail would be ideal. I think that this blade as explained in the rationale, really does promote a safer blade. Not having to put your blade down to switch between sizes would also save a lot of valuable time which is most crucial. It also seems evident much evident was placed into the research as most people are not aware of the safety blade snapping device on the blade.
A very useful product i must say. These craft knives can be used for just about anything and now that theres a design that allows there to be 2 sizes of blades in one just makes it all that much better. The blade snapping symbol is definitely a welcomed symbol because nobody really know how to do it in the first place. The fact that you can still use the large blade handle while using the small blade is perfect because the large handle gives you way more leverage than that small handle.
The only problem is that i don't think its too wise to allow the user to be able to slide both blades out at the same time(i don't know if you can do that but you showed it in your poster so i'm going to assume you can). That can be quite dangerous if the user accidentally pushes on the wrong blade slide while using the other blade. I also don't really understand the ideo of this product. How is it meant to make a user feel a sense of belonging, what if he was the only one with that knife, it would make him the odd one out.
Since the small blade can come out while in the big blade, maybe just make a sliding cover for the slots so when the user isn't using one of the blades, they can cover up the slot preventing the blade from coming out. I would most certainly consider buying one though.
Ray
i think your product is great. I want to mention a few things that i've noticed which i think works really well with the blade blade's target market.
Firstly i find that this tool really communicates to the user on a number of levels. Its colour scheme is that of a traditional safety knife and therefore on first impression the user understands what the product is and how it works. the 'snapping' mechanism communicates its use cleverly and can prevent injury to the user or damage to the tool.
the ergonomic rubber grip is a great addition to the traditional blade as often when people are using their knives and concentrating on their work their palms become sweaty and control of the tool may become impared. The rubber grip would probably help control the tool in these conditions.
One thing im wondering is how come the target market only goes up to 40? i would assume that all people of over 16 would be able to operate this product?
One concern i have is that with the increase of internal mechanisms and slides might lead to complications. the beauty of the original knife was that it was increadibly simple and somewhat fool proof. I feel maybe that dirt and dust could lead to clogages and end up jamming the internal mechanism because of its increased complexity.
I think the idea of having a multi use tool entices a customer to purchase it over others as often users would like to carry one tool that dose the job of two or three rather than carrying many tools.
all in all i think you've done a great job with this product and you really found a workable solution the the problem raised.
This is a very good product, I like how you situated the smaller blade in the body of the larger one, this creates a sense of choice/option and decision making for users to choose which they would prefer. The colours you used matches perfectly, the orange on black look gives your blade a sense of strength to it and it stands out quite well.
One point that stands out to me is that if you wanted to use the smaller blade whilst inside the larger one, i believe it would be much effective to use to it by its won rather than in it
This is a great idea, and greatly appeals to all us industrial design students. At 3am in the morning, it is frightfully easy to cut yourself or do some other damage with a cutting blade, so the focus on safety here is good to see. What I like most about this design is the lengths you went to to ensure the user uses the blade snapping device properly. Many people are unaware of this feature and a set of intuitive instructions are great.
One thing is though, I'm not sure how much people would actually use the small blade whilst inside the larger one. It seems to me that it would be easier and more accurate cutting to just use them separately.
Ray,
I really like your idea, which can make me carry less things in my bag. As an industrial design student we nealy cut things everyday,sometimes after a long time of cutting things, my hands get really painful, and changing to a different sized blade, may release pain, so maybe you could make something more comfortable to be held, like when people see it they just wana grab it and use it. Also not sure about the colour, if your target markets were a rang of people from 16-40 as you said, their taste would be so different.
above all it's a very useful hand tool, and you worked really hard to solve the problem.
LiSa
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