DXL Protective Helmet
3D Design: Product Design – Yellow Pencil
Yves Béhar (design director, fuseproject
Michael Pryde (brand manager, Pryde Group)
Much as we hate to admit it, well-designed sportswear is not as common as it might be. In such a competitive market, which features extensive ongoing research, it is often hard to keep up with the latest technology, let alone design to it. But when it comes to good design – or lack of it – the protective helmet used by snowboarders and skaters remains in a class of its own. This is the one piece of sports kit whose appearance has bothered designers for more than a decade, fit being the main challenge. How do you make protective gear such as this both comfortable and safe to wear, while retaining its aesthetic appeal? That was the quandary faced by the team at fuseproject when they were approached by Pryde Group with the brief to design a new protective helmet. ‘We were looking for a knockout design in a very competitive market,’ explains Michael Pryde, brand manager at Pryde Group. ‘We therefore looked for an outstanding young designer from a small company as, from my experience, I find large companies difficult to work with.’
Fuseproject is a small design firm based in San Francisco. Its philosophy is rooted in the idea that ‘intelligent and consistent stories can be developed for our clients and their products’. ‘The client, Pryde Group, is an established leader in premium priced, high performance sports products,’ notes Yves Béhar, design director at fuseproject. ‘With a strong portfolio of brands in marine and adventure sports, they were looking for an opportunity to expand their presence in snow sports, specifically in the realm of safety and protection.’
Rather than simply presenting the design team with the brief, it was worked on collaboratively. In fact, the initial brief was developed after spending just one day with the fuseproject team. This was then formalised in-house at DXL, which managed the engineering part of the process. ‘I believe we had a very good working relationship,’ says Pryde. ‘However, because DXL were managing part of the process, fuseproject were in San Francisco, we were in Hong Kong and our engineers were in France, this was not always easy to handle due to communication and cultural differences.’
The relationship between client and creative is integral to the success of any project but just how involved the client becomes varies from project to project. Sometimes the client has no creative experience and prefers to remain outside the creative circle; sometimes client involvement is both needed and appreciated. On this occasion, Michael Pryde’s own personal experience as an architect came into play. ‘Coming from a creative background, I was very involved in the whole process, but obviously careful not to prevent the creative process from running its course,’ he says. Neil Pryde/DXL and fuseproject worked very closely on the brand definition and strategy, and all the way through the engineering and manufacturing resolution. Moreover, there was a real emphasis during the design process on the fact that this was a market that needed new thinking, innovation and a human-centred approach.
The brief itself was to reinvent head protection by providing a flexible fit. ‘Most people tend to choose their helmets based on the one that fits them,’ says Behar. ‘The challenge became to design a helmet based on fit, with a focus on adaptability to many different heads.’ The team also opted for an alternative approach when it came to their target market. ‘We decided to address a radically different market: instead of making protection gear for the fanatic X-gamer, we decided to target the average skier and snowboarder.’ As the team found out, this user group has priorities that diverge from those of their extreme-sport counterparts. ‘It was less about looking rad and more about looking smart and feeling comfortable while enjoying their favourite sports.’
When it came to the actual design, the main objective was to create a new snowboard and ski protection line that, in addition to shielding the user, proposed a radical new approach: fit, feel and form that adapt to the wearer’s body. ‘We looked for ways to make protection elegant with great design and innovative engineering,’ says Béhar. And this goal was achieved. Based on this design approach, ‘FIT, FEEL, FORM’ has become DXL’s tagline, an expression of the DXL philosophy, evident everywhere from its packaging to its website to its products. Moreover, the design, as well as the brand, became symbiotically differentiated from other snowboard brands.
The resulting DXL protective helmet uses an innovative new approach that encourages the use of safety equipment by creating a line of headgear that people find comfortable, want to put on and feel good about wearing. The magic behind the DXL helmet is its infinite adjustability. Rather than following the established approach of a using a fixed-form hard shell, the helmet is made of four interconnected plates that can be loosened or tightened. Every head is different and this system adjusts in three dimensions to fit heads of all shapes, not just heads of all sizes. This level of adjustability ensures a secure fit as well as increasing both comfort and safety.
In addition to working with Pryde Group, fuseproject worked with the Pulsium engineering group in France to develop this completely new type of helmet. The four different plates that make up the helmet are connected and articulated by a cable and reel system. The plates are pulled together or relaxed by the wearer, allowing an almost infinite level of adjustment. This not only reduces the confusing number of choices faced by consumers, it also optimises shelf space for retailers. ‘While most helmet lines take five different sizes to ensure a comfortable and proper fit for all, DXL’s innovative infinite fit helmets do this in just two,’ explains Béhar. ‘This gives consumers, who are often overwhelmed by choice, an easy way to find the right helmet and gives retailers with limited shelf space a way to display the entire range of products.’
While the form of the DXL helmet is all about new ways to create a comfortable, widely adjustable, low-profile product, aesthetics were also a prime consideration. After all, style on the slopes is paramount and all the technology in the world will not encourage users to wear a helmet that does not look good, as Béhar points out. ‘We dedicated considerable energy to the physical design and material selection, while making the added complexity of multiple panels and adjustment wheels discreet and well integrated,’ he says. ‘DXL’s top-of-the-line model, for example, uses a carbon fibre composite to dramatically decrease weight while giving the helmet a very high-tech look and feel. DXL helmets are 20 to 30 per cent lighter than most on the market.’
It comes as no surprise that, for Béhar, the most memorable part of the project was experiential: actually putting on the helmet and heading out for a ride. For Pryde it was finally launching the product at the ISPO in Munich, with Béhar as guest speaker at the Volvo design forum.
No project comes without its difficulties, but in the case of the DXL helmet these were primarily technical. Traditionally, protective head and body gear layer hard materials in ways that restrain movement and raise body temperature. Fit is the main challenge that makes protective gear uncomfortable and unattractive. Béhar aimed to maintain innovation while at the same time passing all the required safety tests. ‘The moving plates were at first perceived to be less protective than a rigid single shell but, through refinement, we proved that we could be stronger and safer.’ Pryde agrees: ‘There were mainly technical issues, regarding getting the design to meet international [CE and ASTM] standards, but this was not part of fuseproject’s scope.’
When it came to the budget for this project, there were no real problems from the client as all was well-planned in advance. ‘We negotiated with fuseproject until we were happy to get the level of service and professionalism that was reflected in the fee,’ says Pryde. ‘The cost of manufacturing the product was budgeted prior to commencement of the project.’ That said, the cost of manufacturing was never far from the minds of the creative team. ‘Manufacturing four different plates for the helmet shell demands more tools and parts, which was certainly a cost concern,’ says Béhar. ‘At the same time, the parts are smaller in size, which makes the tooling cheaper and faster to produce. Additionally, the extra costs of parts and assembly is mitigated by the fit adjustment system. We can fit all head sizes with just two product sizes, whereas typically other helmet lines take five different sizes to ensure a comfortable and safe fit.’
Rather than try and improve on what had gone before (and failed), fuseproject had the confidence to throw out the baby with the bath water and start from scratch. They eschewed the traditional hard-shell fixed form of conventional protective headgear in favour of adjustable interior plates and an innovative infinite fit system. Furthermore, the helmet’s fabric-covered sides exude a warm, organic, human feel, making a positive initial impression and enhancing the user’s overall experience. At the core of the design is the tenet that the protective elements of safety gear should not dominate a user’s experience: protection should be there when you need it but it should not get in the way when you don’t. The resulting award-winning DXL Headwear line was built around fit, feel and form.
So what did both client and creative learn from the project? For Yves Béhar it was that heads are very different from each other. Michael Pryde, however, takes more of a business line. ‘You either go for a knockout or you do “cheap as chips”. Being in the middle sends the wrong message to the industry and consumers,’ he says.
‘DXL quickly established itself as a premium brand of snow sport protective gear and Pryde Group’s reputation as a manufacturer of highly engineered sporting goods combined with a design strategy that addresses an under-recognised market segment resulted in DXL’s emergence as a category-defining brand,’ says Béhar. ‘The first year’s launch, in the European market, saw the helmet line selling out.’
However, as this case study shows, even the most successful projects run into problems post-production. Since winning its D&AD award, Pryde Group has decided not to continue with the product. ‘This was a commercial decision and not related to the design of the product,’ Pryde is keen to stress. ‘Our distribution was not suited to exploit the uniqueness of the products in a rapidly commoditised market.’ That said, Pryde would not change much if he were to repeat the project, though he would have conceded to an in-house product engineer/manager. ‘We did most of the things we wanted to do as planned. What we did not expect was the rapid commoditisation of the product category,’ he says. ‘Also, we made some risky assumptions regarding the quality of our existing distribution that did not work for us.’
One of the most interesting – and challenging – aspects of this project was its geography. The project took place on three continents, with Pryde in Hong Kong, Pulsium Engineering in France and and fuseproject in California. This would once have been an impossible situation; today, thanks to ever-improving technologies it is possible to work with creatives, quite literally, across the globe. For Pryde, travelling to and from San Francisco and getting involved was not always easy, while the team in San Francisco recall the challenge of scheduling conference calls. ‘But we could all talk about snowboarding and skiing any time of the day!’ concludes Béhar.