Texas Wildflower Keychain
Goal: Capturing the essence of my hometown using 3D media.
Tools Used: Blender3D, Procreate, Google Forms, 3D printers, acrylic paint
Timeline: 3 weeks
Introduction
Design Brief: Create a souvenir that represents your hometown.
I began by sketching iconic elements of Texas: live music, cowboys, and cacti. I then realized I wanted to create a souvenir that reflected how I interacted with Austin, rather than a surface-level view of the city itself. I grew up by the highway, where the Texas Department of Transportation would plant wildflowers every year. My family and I would take photos among the bluebonnets, Indian blankets, and pinkladies. This inspired me to design a wildflower-inspired lip balm holder, a tribute to the preparation my family and I did before taking our photos.
Guiding principles based on data
How are lip products normally carried?
Understanding how lip products are carried is essential to creating an effective product consumers often reach for. I had two major questions for consumers:
Do you carry lip products with you outside of your home?
(is there a market for a product?)
How do you store lip balm?
(where is a key location for carrying the product?)
After identifying my questions, I then surveyed a select group and asked them two main quantitative questions. I also asked one open-ended question: What aspects of lip balm holders matter to you and why? The results are listed below:
From the open-ended question, the words aesthetic and functional kept coming up. These words would become my guiding principles for creating the lip balm keychain.
Key takeaways
Based on my research, I identified a market opportunity for innovative ways to carry lip products. Interestingly, many individuals surveyed were unfamiliar with the concept of a lip balm keychain, offering a unique surprise element for potential new consumers. Since most respondents were students who frequently carry backpacks, I decided to target them as the primary audience, with their backpacks serving as the ideal vessel for my lip balm holder.
Comparing Competitors
How are companies holding their lip products?
Researching how companies hold lip products, I began to see a pattern: they only created keychains specially made for their lip products, forcing consumers to buy custom lip balms within the company ecosystem.
This created a gap in the market if users wanted to switch out their lip products. From there, I identified the goal: to create a lip balm holder that fits various types of lip balms, unlike competitors.
Testing user pathways
What materials will be the most efficient? How will the lip product be held?
I began exploring user pathways with the most popular route: the backpack. Placing lip products in backpacks was the longest route, with unzipping and searching taking much longer than the carabiner and elastic counterparts. The carabiner, however, also faces challenges, the hook is a high-stress point that can be hard to unclasp for every use. The elastic was the best option to hold the lip balm, as it was the shortest and least stress-inducing route.
Potential variables:
In the backpack, products may be lost or thrown into different pockets, creating more time lost
Carabiners have varying resistance levels and may be harder to open if tighter
Elastic may not work if lip product is extremely wide
Sketching
I explored different forms of flowers to understand how I wanted to incorporate them with the lip product.
Based on the context from my data, I understood that the flowers couldn't fully wrap around the lip product because it would block the elastic holding the product making it less efficient for students.
The final sketch creates the illusion of a flower wrapped around the product but only covers the face of it to make space for the elastic in the back.
Mixing function and form: The Prototype
I began with a 3D model on Blender, quickly realizing that my detailed sketches would not translate well with flexible 3D filament, which has fewer details than standard filament. I decided to make the flower thicker to make it sturdier and simpler.
I then 3D-printed the flowers with flexible filament, primed, painted, and finished them. I then painted and sewed elastic to the flowers.
Testing Usability
I tested out lip product shapes on my keychain, making sure the elastic could fit tubes, rectangles, and various shapes. These tests ended up being successful and there wasn't a shape that the elastic could not handle.
