Dipped into the user journey in modern outdoor camping, come up with a series of product to help enhance the experience in the wild

Client: MeRedd
Keywords: Product Design, Product Development, Branding, Logo design, Packaging design, Web design

THE CHALLENGE

Camping can be a real hassle without proper gear, especially camping has become a trend in many concrete jungle, more and more people living in central city are longing for a refreshing experience in the nature.

Rather than the traditional image of a very primitive outdoor camping, they are looking for a more enjoyable & luxury camping experience.

In order to adapt to this brand new mindset, our vision was to create a series of modern outdoor product that allowed consumers to enjoy their living in the wild.

THE OUTCOME

An modern, user-centered experience and consistent design language across MeRedd with a series of necessities for wild living – Cooking tools : Spatuladle, Meal set – Meal set combo, Lighting device – 360 Lantern & Lantern flasher and the Meal set combo has awarded in Hong Kong Smart gift design award 2014.

DISCOVERY

The different between traditional camping with modern

Traditionally, camping has been valued as an opportunity to isolate one-self, to experience the primitive attractions of the natural environment, and to temporarily escape the complexities of urban life.

These traditional camping values may still apply to some degree, but conditions in modern campers have changed and began to camp for pleasure.

Today’s camper can insulate themselves from the natural environment to almost any desired degree with modern fabric or aluminum “pickup campers” and trailers. Campers are no longer required to forfeit many comforts of the urban environment to enjoy outdoor recreation.

All these changes have expanded the appeal of camping to a more diverse group of people and coupled with continued population growth and increased leisure time, have produced a larger and more varied camping population.

IDEATION & DESIGN

A bit of the urban vibe to the nature

Camping nowadays is like bringing your house to the natural environment.

Therefore, apart from make use of what you can get in nature as a tool, modern campers are more likely to bring well-functional, fancy tools to the site.

So our initial thought was started from what campers usually do to spend their time at home and what tools do they used to accomplish those tasks ?

The design ideation would focus on what were missing when living in nature compare to living at home and transform those tools at home into an functional outdoor items that can tackle the wildlife situation.

Bring relax and pleasant experience to campers

People in urban are “lazy”, they get used to have everything just by their hand to help them easily finish the task in everyday life. Therefore, simple, ease of use will always be their consideration when purchasing item.

Moreover, packing will always be a huge task whenever go on camping, don’t need to mention those family with kids, this will definitely bring headache to parent. By concern of that, people are always looking for something either multi-functional or come with a whole perfect pack with all items inside.

Simple, Ease of use, Multi-functional and All-in-one packed product will be on our consideration when work on the design.

Cooking –> Consuming –>
No electricity supply outdoor

Based on problems that campers may encountered or concerned. Focus on prior activities in outdoor

IMPLEMENTATION

Making ideas a reality

I have immersed from marketing research to ideation, product development and design.

From under the user needs, to the iterative design prototyping and testing, materials were all carefully selected in order to ensure all features works well in outdoor environment.

There are initially 4 items in this outdoor brand: a Cooking tool, a Dining set, a Small magnetic personal light and a Camping lantern

• Spatuladle

A cooking tool specially customized for outing from function to size

People are now strive for a high quality of enjoyment when camping, Tons of cookware and food were brought to the wildlife and made themselves as no different as home.

While seeing people carrying over-sized backpack or a full loaded truck with discrete tools, we would like to help them spare some more space and eliminate the tools they need to bring.

We brings the origami folding technique into the structure of the product. By carefully measure the angle and fold line, the product could be fold from a flatten profile into a perfect scoop shape. Silicone & Nylon were selected as they were right fit for the concept: flexible, durable, food grade and able to bare high temperature.

• Meal Set Combo

Address to the most critical issue of bulky loading as well as dining in the dark

Dining with limited light source in wild could be a nightmare. When camping lantern not able to shine up critical spot of your sight, you may not able to see clearly what you are going to pick, eat or any undesirable object accidentally fall into your food.

A foldable spork (Spoon & Fork) with a glowing tail was designed base on the image of firefly – Imagine a soft diffused light shine through the darkness environment in wild. We carefully adjust the angle and the finishing in order to guild the LED light throughout the entire handle, which able to provide a bright enough light source while reduce the risk of direct light beam harm user’s eyes.

The foldable spork fit well with a collapsible cup and a thin bowl, all packed in one for best convenience and place saving.

• Lantern Flasher

A multi-functional personal light with a retractable magnetic carabiner to help people tackle different situation in wild

Get lost, missing accompany, car broke down… Things always out of your plan when you go living in the wild.

We make use of the collaboration of carabiner with retractable wire to break the distance and position restriction. Users are able to fix and pull the light to where they want the light to be by hook it on thick or thin items, such as backpack, tree, fence or even stick it on their car with the magnetic carabiner.

We have put together 3 light modes for different needs, a white light for lighting up the area or indicate position, a SOS light for help seeking and a red emergency light specifically for car broke down.

• 360 Lantern

Renovate the traditional way of usage to enhance the user experience

Traditional lantern normally contains several buttons for switching between strobe light or lantern, this setting makes product difficult to manage in the dark.

Consider the usage in different terrain and situation in wild, we have developed a 360 rotary light head which user are able to switch the light by simple rotation. The design included a 270º strobe light to light up particular area wherever it placed. When the light face down, it would pass through the the transparent window and become lantern. We designed to simplify from the usage to the structure. With the 360 rotary design, one set of light are able to reduce the manufacturing cost while enhanced the function.

To assist in different unexpected situation in wild, apart from the white light, we have included also a SOS red light and a dynamic charger in case your communication device or light run out of battery.

BRANDING

Building a new brand

To align the brand with the positions and visual language of the product in the outdoor market, we have to make our purpose and story very clear to the user in order to highlight the emotional value and connect the brand as well as the product to users.

We have designed a brand story, tone and visual language which could connected to all relax adventurous while nature engaged users and apply the vibe to editorials, packaging & display and digital design.

Art Direction

The brand position is targeting beginner to mid-level campers who want to relax and have joy in outing or who need to refresh, recharge or inspired from the nature in order to gain the power to tackle tasks everyday in concrete jungle.

The art direction needed an image that reflect the inner needs of users. That was why from the product design rather then muted or dark color-palette, the bright and vibrant color-palette were chosen to deliver the lively emotion. Furthermore, the product were designed with more details and lines in order to bring more energy to the design rather then a clean and minimal approach.

To continue the vibe through the whole brand, from logo design to the photographic language communicates the message and feelings that explaining the story and background of the brand with a touch of nature.

• The MEREDD brand

We believe every experience, everything we have seen, listened, touched makes us become who we are.

Adventures create our own personality, our core values, we call it – uniqueness. The brand would like to spread out an important message that everyone is special & unique, people should always go explore on their own possibilities &  be who they really want to be.

Each product of this brand contains its own unique feature. We believe spark could be created when these products meet precious people and this could open up unlimited possibilities & brings people to the brand new world.

“ME” formed with a sharp edge, thick & uneven line, non of the line are parallel with vertical / horizontal line.

People should have their strong personality & do not compromise easily or just follow a standard path Make “ME”,  yourself to be seen & focus on who you are.

The SLOGAN below is like an answer to the name of the brand.

“REDD” formed in a hand writing with smooth line.

Red.Hot.Hit are the meaning hidden behind “Redd”, yourself hold the pen to write the story of your own. It could be so flexible with many possibilities, everyone could do in a different way.