After having meetings with Crumpler, Urth and July, Soft Serve Studio were a common theme. All three companies recommended Soft Serve Studio as collaborators on the project. 

Kaine and Jainis are both ex crumpler designers. Dave Roper opened Crumpler in 2009 and has since sold and bought the brand. Dave looked at the Wearable Cool Infuser project, and decided due to the stage it was at, Soft Serve Studio were a better fit than Crumpler. Dave put me in contact with Kaine from Soft Serve Studio.

"Can I be honest? This bag feels too technical. In my opinion, our job here is to create something warm and cuddly, approachable, familiar. A carrier to dress the technical and medical device inside."

Kaine Whiteway, Soft Serve Studio, 20/09/2023

20/09/2023

In our first meeting at the Soft Serve Studio, I presented the ice packs, bag, charging station and fittings I had developed. After explaining the problem and scope of the project, and the soft vs hard conundrum, Kaine proposed that the soft bag had too many problems, and the soft style presented too many technical challenges to create a stylish result.

17/10/2023

Discussing the inital brief it became evident that the project was trying to solve too many things. Such as allowing the patients to go to work, sleep, travel etc. We decided to narrow back down to do one job well. This resulted in losing the pocket as the pocket presented sanitisation issues. 

09/10/2023

In our second workshop, we developed a reverse brief, a collaborative effort where Soft Serve Goods critically evaluated the initial concepts I presented. Together, we delved deeper into the use case, striving for a mutual understanding of how to effectively navigate these potential design options.

The third workshop began with 3 design concepts or ideas, and these were refined through paper making, conversation, sketching and wearing. A combination of concepts B and C was taken forward.

Soft Serve Goods were provided with a range of logos to brand the bag with. It was decieded that the Cold Infusion Flask did not need to be included on the logo as the text became too small.

The final carrier has a magnetic closure that allows the PICC line to thread out of the carrier and into a second magnetic management cavity. The carrier has two handles: a hand grab handle for easy moving around the house, and an over the shoulder strap that allows the flask to be worn on the body, but also easily hung over a shower. The carrier has a sturdy base and a is lined with a neoprene to stop the patient feeling the cold exterior of the flask.