Make It Better! Design for Five Bucks

My team and I have successfully finished our project on the cigar cutter. Although it wasn't easy, and we hit a lot of road blocks, we finally got it finished. Here's a look into the process we went through.

We started with the original product and used the wall to brainstorm ideas of where we wanted to go with it. Photos of both are shown in my last post. From there, we interviewed several different sources. Including friends and family, and also prominent business men and even a man who worked at a huge cigar shop in Wichita, Kanas. We reconvened with all of our newly discovered information as to what people were looking for in a cigar cutter. One of the most prominent traits we found was status. We wanted to develop a piece that was flashy, sophisticated, and prestigious enough to fit in with the cigar smoking culture. We also wanted to find a design that didn't require finger holes so it would be able to appear to a much larger field of people. From there, we started sketching. and sketching. and sketching. We all had different approaches to new designs. I played mostly with different shapes to give the cutter. 

Once we were through sketching, we started sifting through the new ideas and started building prototypes. We build four prototypes before we did our final. Each one was different from the next, so we could get a real handle on how we wanted our cutter to function, to feel, and how to look in a three-dimensional form. 

Here's our final product:

Our new cigar cutter considers how the cutter is held and stored. Comfort while cutting, safety an ring size, which will range up to a 64-ring gauge are also necessary features. The ideal cutter needs to have dual blades so that the cigar is cut cleanly and des not ruin the smoking experience with a bad cut. In order to uphold the status of the cigar smoking culture we are going to make our cigar cutter with sterling silver and black leather.