Max Le Moine
Industrial Design Student
Joey
Soap and Sponge Holder
2nd Year, 4 Weeks
For one of my major projects in my second year, I was given the challenge of designing a product for a small kitchen environment. Analyzing the challenges in my kitchen and other small apartment kitchens, I decided to design a combination of a soap and sponge holder.
This concept uses biomimicking as I thought of how a mother kangaroo holds her baby (Joey) in a pouch. I wanted to incorporate this phenomenon in my product as it uses different levels and visual dominance to combine the bottle and sponge.
Market Analysis
Looking at current products on the market, I identified two problems that were common with most current products including: there is no proper drainage (into the sink) for the sponge, and the products do not allow the user to remove the bottle from the sponge holder to apply soap on larger products like pots.
Form Developement
I started my ideation by sketching and thinking of ways to have the soap portion rest on a kitchen counter while the sponge hangs from it over the sink.
Prototypes
Once I had my basic idea, I used cardboard modeling and sketching to get a sense of proportions. This was then modeled in SOLIDWORKS and 3D printed to get a more accurate sense of the proportions. After looking at the 3D print and receiving feedback, I went back to sketching and CAD modeling to improve the form and visual aesthetics of my product.
Rendering
Finally, I used Adobe Illustrator for my persuasive sketching; this helped me learn how to use line weight, colour, and gradients to bring my products to life!
