PROJECT BRIEF
TIME:
14 weeks design project
14 weeks design project
Design:
-Junran Yang---research, product design, graphics, CAD -Lele Liu----research, package design, UI/UX
-Junran Yang---research, product design, graphics, CAD -Lele Liu----research, package design, UI/UX
Skills:
Product design;
Research; CAD & render
Product design;
Research; CAD & render
Meet the sustainable idea for a sunglass brand design.
PHYTOSHADE is a sunglass brand that takes care of environmental issues and generates earth-friendly products. The product line features 3 design innovations including modularity, the temple clip, and a sustainable manufacturing ecosystem. The brand also offers customers a wealth of choices on sunglass styles. In conclusion, we thrive to bring sustainable ideas to the sunglass industry.
In general, PHYTOSHADE offers the sunglass experience of easy REPLACE, REPAIR AND RECYCLE. Its unique temple-clip feature also encourages users to secure their sunglasses on their clothes when glasses are not in use. The brand also pays attention on the manufacturing process and material choices to improve the sustainability on each shade.
When you purchase a pair from PHYTOSHADE, not only do you receive the shades, but you also spread the concept of sustainability to the broader public through our stylished designs.
PHYTOSHADE OVERVIEW
-MODULARITY-
These call-out views illustrate the two structures that enbles modularity. The lens clip (on the left) helps to hold lenses in place. You can easily diassemble lenses from the frame by simply pushing on the pin. The temple wrap (on the right) acts as axis so the clip-shape temple could rotate around it. Also, the extrusion on it helps to restrict rotation angle.
Elements on the sunglasses are interlocked with each other, holded by no screw and no glue. You can quickly taking it all apart just like playing LEGO toys with no assisstance from tools.
REPLACE, REPAIR, RECYCLE, what is more, CUSTOMIZE
Imagining specific parts on the sunglasses are broken, you do not need to buy a whole new pair. Instead, you could buy just the temple, the frame, or the lens and replace them by yourself.
The design also allows you to customize each part. You could find larger black oval lenses for hiking, and replace it by cute pink ones for a date.
Besides, you could reuse the same parts, only moderate specific areas to change the look. It enables you to customize your styles and appearances while saving you from buying a whole new pair and wasting them over time.
Finally, you can recycle each parts after disassembling.
REPLACE, REPAIR, RECYCLE, what is more, CUSTOMIZE
-TEMPLE CLIP-
The temple-clip feature allows you to clip the sunglasses on your dress. You could do this on the neckline, on the edge of your pockets, etc. This rapid and simple action will not take you any extra thoughts or efforts, but it avoids losing sunglasses.
NO MORE LOSING SHADES
Where do you usually put your sunglasses when you have to take them off temporarily. It is either left on the forehead, clipped on your clothes with one temple, or naturally grabbed in your hands.
Those placements are not safe.
Our clip feature is more stable because it provides a stronger grip, you can use it as a pen clip, no longer worring about squeezed and broken sunglasses in your pockets, or your mindless misplacement, or sunglasses falling onto the ground.
NO MORE LOSING SHADES
-RETAIL EXPERIENCE-
PHYTOSHADE provides a full non-retailer shopping experience. You can shop both online or on a grounded venting machine. Both experiences give you a chance to acquire virtual try-on, testing fit for general sizes and styles.
When you purchasing a complete set of parts online, we will deliver the bundle as packages are piled up and tied together. You can also purchase individual parts from online channels or venting machines as they are packed separately. You will choose to keep the packages, and arranging them for storage, so that later you could send them back with your wasted parts for refund. Or, you could simply decompose them as they are made by natural fibers.
SUSTAINABILITY
-MATERIALS-
The primary materials that consist of the PHYTOSHADE sunglasses are polycarbonate (made into lenses), recycled metal (made into frames), bio-plastic (made into temples and other supplementary structures).
The manufacturing of bio-plastic is one focus that we investigating into. In general, we found multiple sources that produce bio-plastics from food wastes, plant wastes, etc. That is to say, we are confident to source our bio-plastics from natural wastes of our daily consumptions and repurpose them. For example, Companies like Chip[s] Board® is manufacturing workable bio-plastics, which helps to support this idea.
We also made our own experiment of producing sample pieces with merely just orange/banana wastes, agar, gelatin, and other natural sources. Certain limitations are acknowledged with our experiment, for example, the durability is poor and the strength is undesirable. However, we believe with more efficient lab conditions and experts and companies supporting the development of bio-plastics, we will be able to source the ideal material for this project.
By repurposing daily organic wastes into useful materials, we want to give PHYTOPSHADE sunglasses the next-level touch of sustainability.
-SINGLE STRIPE FRAME & SCREWLESS DESIGN-
The metal frame is bent with a single stripe of metal with two nosepads on two ends. Showing in the below illustration, the stripe shapes will be arranged in a certain array and cut from sheets of metals. After cutting, metal stripes will be shaped into frames with machine power. The cutting pattern optimizes the material wastes in the frame manufacturing process, minimizing assembling steps and any extra operations, like soldering hinges, drilling screw holes... ...
Other structural pieces (lens clips, hinge wraps) that help the frame to connect the lenses and temples will be pre-assembled onto the frame. Their interlocking features will offer a fully screwless feature to save the amount of material usage and assembling labors.
-LONGER LIFE-SPAN-
The previously mentioned temple-clip feature also helps to prolong the life span of one pair of sunglasses, since glasses are made less easier to get lost and wasted.
The modular design as well enables users to easily tweak glass styles and repair individual parts, in order to encourage reusing old parts and prolonging the life span of certain pieces instead of buying a whole new pair.
-LCA-
(The life cycle assessment, in general, is a sustainability assessment tool that is commonly used to visualize and quantify the sustainability of a certain design. In our process, in order to prove how sustainable we have improved on the current products, we purchased a pair of sunglasses from the online channel and made a LCA comparison between our design and our benchmark product. )
The results involving studying and refining detailed manufacturing process tree and an OKALA score comparison. Some limitations sit in this study because our lack of information of certain manufacturing techniques and material input and etc. The results are both based on reality and assumptions.
In general, the study provides an expository overview on PHYTOSHADE’s manufacturing ecosystem and states the huge improvement we have set comparing the benchmark product that is on the current market.
INVENTORY MATRIX OF BENCHMARK SUNGLASSES
INVENTORY MATRIX OF PHYTOSHADE SUNGLASSES
Basically, we have improved PHYTOSHADE sunglasses life cycle, compared to the benchmark sunglasses, in the following aspects:
1. Reduce input materials & replace harmful materials by earth-friendly substitutes
2. Integrate and simplify manufacturing processes to reduce labors
3. Less transportation wastes
4. Empowering recycling & composting end of life
2. Integrate and simplify manufacturing processes to reduce labors
3. Less transportation wastes
4. Empowering recycling & composting end of life
-PROCESS TREE-
In the Process Trees, we identify detailed life cycle for our benchmark product, and we make a hypothetical process tree for our design, minimizing inputs and outputs to reduce the environmental impacts for our brand. You click the photo to view large image. On the left is the benchmark sunglasses, and on the right is PHYTOSHADE sunglasses.
-OKALA SCORE-
By using the OKALA score calculation guideline, PHYTOSHADE sunglasses hypothetically reduce the environmental impacts by 54% comparing with the benchmark sunglasses.
PROCESS
-RESEARCH-
In general, through our primary research and user-based research, we discover the 4 important insights for our concept: we highlight the overall sunglass wastes worldwide; we highlight the online retail trend; we emphasize losing glasses as a pain point; and we understand people purchase multiple glasses with different styles for different scenarios.
-IDEATION-
