Engineering the Modern day Cricket Bat
ProductDesign | Cricket | Sports | Manufacturing
An attempt to study various sports, sportsmen, and coaches to ideate, prototype, test, and manufacture the new age cricket bats. Establishing innovation in the conventional sport of cricket. Works on polyvinyl stickers and other accessories are also presented.
Starting by analyzing the materials like the English, Kashmir willow of the bat, Singapore, Andaman handles, Grip materials and the toe guards, we were able to substantially improve the quality and hence making the product perform better along with the unique innovations mentioned above.
My Role
Industrial Designer,
Wood Specialist
Targets
Cricket, Sports enthusiasts,
Cricket Market
Timeline
18 months
2017-19
Org
Elevar Sports
Mumbai, India
Tools
Elements
SolidWorks, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Research, Wood Working, Prototyping, Manufacturing
The Challenge
How can we innovate within constraints of the established cricket world?
The sport of cricket has evolved dramatically over the years but the cricket bat has pretty much stayed the same. This is an attempt to engineer a new era of bats with science and wood expertise.
The Insights
The traditional Japanese sword is one of the exceptional weapon with flawless handling. This inspired me to implement the design into the bat.
The Katana inspiration
The bat handle transfers the impact shock from the bat to the hand making it uncomfortable to hold. By testing numerous materials, I chose to use silicone as shock absorption and distribution unit.
Shock absorption & distribution
The appeal to the bat has stayed the same with stickers on the top part of the face. Checkout how we used stickers on the bat.
Modern aesthetic & appeal
The Solution
Engineered bat with unique handle design backed with science and testing.
The Elevar bat is a modern day equipment with the best appeal using unique poly-vinyl stickers, katana inspired handle design with silicone inserts to offer the best shock absorptions and redistribution feature reducing impact to the palms.
The Impact
Financial
Being the first product launch for the company, it was a massive success gettign the team to a break-even point.
With improvement in processes, there was an average profit margin of 42%, over a period of one year.
Social
With enhanced customer experience, the sales and the social media impressions went up
Customers were delighted with the bat making their game play more enjoyable
Strategic
The first product's success set us up for newer models and limited edition series which sold out in less than a week
Also, this enabled the company to assess the market and focus on other products that our customers were interested in.
Click below to understand my process
Explore More
