Completed 2008
This entry level battery powered smoke detector blends simple, clean aesthetics, with a touch of colour to add interest to a market swamped with dull and boring products.
When the batteries run out, the lid opens to display the brightly coloured housing. This visually alerts consumers of the need to change batteries.
This was one of my final year projects at university and the design got selected as a finalist in the 2008 Dyson Student Design Awards in Australia.
I took the tech. package of an existing smoke detector and then designed my outer form around that.
I had the parts 3D printed and the outer white form made out of Silicone. I designed the packaging for it as well.
I really wanted to be involved in the whole process, I believe that the product designer should be at least involved in all the design decisions of the product (product graphics, logo, packaging etc.)
Money shot, installed on ceiling
Proposed colour variations
Attention was paid to reducing the amount of components and unsightly engineering detailing, whilst maintaining strength and functionality.
A small cheap solenoid was added to the standard technical package to facilitate the auto opening lid.
The packaging was designed to be clear and straight to the point, reducing the amount of thinking or intelligence needed to understand how to install and use the product safely. This is also the reason why the product comes with all of the tools required to the do the job.
To appeal to young children, this product features a glow in the dark smoke detector lid and glow in the dark arrow stickers.
The aim is to involve children in the process of fire safety education by getting them to place the stickers on the walls of the house that lead to the fire exits.
This engaging process would hopefully help to jog their memory in case of a fire and also illuminate the path.
The paper packaging was first designed in 3D to conform to the shape of the product.
Then the surfaces were flattened and imported into Illustrator.
This saved a lot of re-work; had I tried to make a bunch of physical prototypes.
(I regularly import/export many file formats to achieve specific results and dimensional accuracy isn't a problem because i am extremely pedantic and often write up specific steps for each task to ensure consistency)
This is the physical prototype I produced including the printed packaging which was sent to the design awards
