Volvo toaster

Project Description

Designing a toaster that fits to a company`s design language.

I chose Volvo, which is famous for providing high levels of comfort, safety and reliability with a luxorious clean Swedish design.

Brand research

I have visited a Volvo dealership and sit in a few cars to get the feeling that customers get, when they buy a new Volvo and to observe shapes and elements that are used.

Moodboards

I created different moodboards, to show Volvo`s visual appearance both interior and exterior. I focused on shapes, colours and textures.

How to relate words into a toaster?

I associated words that represent the company, then I connected these words with elements

Sweden-Swedish flag

Safety-Strong, Heavy, Spacious

Family-Should make more than 2 slices at the same time

Elegance-Silver, Chrome

Winter-Heating knob

Clean-White colour, Clean lines

Off-road-Forest, Woods

Toaster analysis

I wanted to have a regular slider to lower the bread down and only one knob from where the user can adjust and control everything. To make it “futureproof” an integrated touchscreen will show all the necessary information at startup, after the lever has been pushed down.

Ideation and conceptualization

I started sketching my quick ideas how the general proportions and shapes could look like.

Mockups

To validate the ideas that I had on paper, I built 3 pretotypes, to get a visual touchable 3D form.

Final concept

The final concept is a white toaster with chrome and wood details.

CAD modelling

After the final design have been chosen. I started to model the final concept in SOLIDWORKS. To make the prototyping easier, I have created technical drawings for each component of the protoype.

In the workshop

Based on the technical drawings the blocks were cut out and glued together. Before gluing the parts together, channels were milled for the electric components and for the slider mechanism.
The top cover was also made from smaller blocks and using wood spackle the pieces were seamlessly attached together.
After the adhesion, the main body was sanded to it’s final shape. To remove large volumes sanding machine was used, but to create small radii, sandpaper and Scotch-Brite were used by hand.

Renders

Beside design, my goal was to create a functional toaster, which is going to be used by a nuclear family where the mornings in the kitchen are busy and the importance of a time efficient toaster is great. I also wanted to remind the user for Volvo`s heritage by having parts that refer to safety, stability and elegance.