Barber's Bra

Developing barbering skills has been a super fun way to truly meet people- breaking the ice, in some instances has provided me with some of the most meaningful conversations and human insights ever, and it has also contributed for me to have had the great opportunity, pleasure and honour of becoming Head of Wellbeing and a Prefect for my school.
Many of the skills learnt and developed throughout the years practicing barbering have been fundamental to further develop my skills on product design; offering consultations to active listening to comprehend the person's needs, assessing their features-characteristics-styles, suggesting ideas, asking and implementing feedback to improve user experience, have all been invaluable to further developing my skills.

Although, I absolute love helping people to feel more confident and refreshed with a haircut; i cannot help myself but always seeing life and its hiccups through problem solving, creating or helping to create a solution keeps me upbeat.

This time, I wanted to ensure I could offer all my clients not only the best trim, but the best experience ever when having a hair cut. I started collecting feedback; the majority of my clients (90% students) were super happy with their final product, but a common pattern started to emerge with time; the haircuts started to feel a bit rushed, some of them felt that i was not given enough time and i was not as focused as before on their stories, important dates, etc. apparently, a lot of the "banter" had gone.
Although a bit hurtful, this was an accurate feedback of what was happening; the demand for haircuts enormously raised, i was trying to balance all my academic and extra-curricular activities with barbering, the more haircuts i did, the more I needed to pay attention to the hygiene of the equipment. Whilst the clientele increased, the diversity of hair types increased; so i needed to learn the intricacies to cater for my new clients type of hair, to produce the results expected, and it was becoming a bit more difficult to keep all the stories, important dates and keep up with love-story dramas of all my clients.

The hygiene part of the issue was easy to solve, i researched on some different products that would allow me to carry out this task in a fraction of time - Spray presentation helped massively with this

To be able to remember my clients stories, their special events, last hair cut, their likes, etc I started, with their permission, to quickly video the start and end of each appointment, I would give a summary of the highlights of the appointments and will watch it a couple of minutes before the next appointment.

But there was still a problem to solve; I needed a product to help with my organisation, something to keep all my barbering stuff in one place without the need for a table or bench to rest them on whilst barbering, or rummaging through my barbering rucksack to find the second trimmer or guard needed to complete the trim; this not only felt unprofessional, but took away my focus and concentration from my client.
In addition, not having enough space to organise my barbering kit, having to stop to change equipment/product halfway through a haircut, or looking for a different trimmers and guard, all have a huge negative knock-on effect in my clients/user overall experience.

I wanted to bring the overall experience and quality to a higher standard with my total focus on my client, no time wasted on looking for missing things. I needed something suitable for small spaces, so no extra bench or table was needed for my equipment and non interrupted appointments.
The next step was asking professionals and clients feedback on some products available in the market; I could not find anything available that fulfilled all my needs: Able to store 2 trimmers, comb . sciccors???? , easy to transport, did not need extra space to display, able to hold the spray to sanitize the equipment, fashionable design, functional and secure (It will hold scissors and sharp equipment).



After going through many different ideas, they all seemed to have a boxy design. However, I kept developing ideas, concepts. materials, functionality.... The final design was born, a sleek leather construction, perfect for holding clippers and scissors securely in place for easy access during haircuts. A must-have accessory for any barber looking to streamline their workspace with style and functionality.

I currently use the product in my day to day haircuts and it really contributes to the overall user experience - No mess, no interrupted appointment, focus and concentration on my clients - Increased professionalism.

Here is the formal complete history of the product from idea- concepts- sketches- materials- processes to final product, feel free to have a look and dive into the entire process.
Enjoy…
Copy and paste the link below to see:
file:///C:/Users/joeja/Downloads/DT%20IA%20-%20Copy.pdf