Gravel Travel (Design Research + Industrial Design)
Gravel Travel is startup that focuses on travel experiences and products. As a design lead I developed their design (research) processes and launched two projects—a blanket and a backpack system—for a total of four products that raised over 1 million dollars in crowdfunding alone, has sold regularly for years, and awarded a patent.
I also directed 4 designers throughout the design process, including junior designers and interns.
Design Research
Because I was the first industrial designer to work at Gravel Travel they asked me to build out their design processes. I began by differentiating between primary research and secondary research methods. I made it clear that PRIMARY RESEARCH was vital to the success of our products. This meant doing secondary research on the side, while focusing on meeting our current and future users where they were. I built out various worksheets, which often built on one another, in order to organize and glean insights from the primary research.
I conducted 30+ interviews, held 5 workshops, and received 600+ survey results. I arrived at two main insights: travelers preferred hands-free experiences, and there was a lack of comfort while traveling overall.
Industrial Design
Based on the research conducted we decided to design a travel blanket that brought comfort and warmth (and was easy to stash away) and a travel backpack system that focused on a hands-free travel experience.
Throughout the process I developed sketches, tech packs, sewed samples, and worked with manufacturers abroad to bring these projects to life.
We iterated on dozens of concepts for the solutions we needed to accomplish between the blanket and the backpack:
For the backpack system we eventually decided to develop three bags that interlocked in various fashions. Here are some of the concepts below:
Much of the design was in the details. I sketched hundreds of pages of details, such as the one below:
Here are images of the four completed products, including the travel blanket and the three travel bags:
This project required me to understand soft goods, hard goods, manufacturing, design team management, and a range of other useful design skills. The range of products released found success on kickstarter and the Gravel Travel online store. We also proposed a travel water bottle that was able to fit into slim luggage, but did not go into production.
