Product Design Scotland, Edinburgh: Shore Design

Husqvarna ▪ Flymo Brand Mower Handle

Requirement

Flymo, who are on record as the UK's leading lawnmower brand with annual sales in excess of 1 million products, were looking to re-fresh their standard lawnmower handle components for 2009 and beyond. Their in-house mechanical team had been developing an innovative flexible handle concept and requested support from an external design house that could both contribute through their understanding of consumer oriented aesthetic form in line with the ever evolving Flymo corporate identity and also their knowledge of the technical requirements for high volume 2- shot moulding.

Development

Working in close collaboration with the Husqvarna design teams in Sweden and the UK, Shore Design developed a series of handle concepts through an iterative process of hand sketches and model development. Following a review with key marketing decision makers, these designs were further refined in 3D CAD and presented as photorealistic renderings capturing colour, form and texture options.

Following the selection of a preferred design direction, Shore then captured the external 'A' surface form in 3D CAD which was then used during the main mechanical development and ultimately in the generation of the mass production tooling.

Result

Initially released into the market place to compliment the flagship lawnmower, the Flymo Glide Master, the handle set has been very well received and will continue to be rolled out across the brand throughout 2010 & 2011.