Evolve Chiller
CLIENT: Plunge
OUR ROLE: Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Coordination, Packaging Design
Plunge is an innovative upstart brand that put cold plunging on the radar for many, offering an easy to use, cost-effective system that delivers real physical and mental health benefits. This placed them at the top of the category with rave reviews and $82m in revenue. However, being at the top attracts competitors, and they were entering the market at a rapid pace.
With only a few high-end products, Plunge secured the top end of the market, but they needed to create a family of products to reach more customers along the spectrum, and they needed it soon. The same brilliance and ambition that led them to go from a garage-built prototype to a multi-million dollar business in a few years led them to Hypersurface Studio.
RESULTS
One of the most popular chillers on the market
New customers reached
A foundation for a suite of products
Increased revenue by $18M
A full product line developed and shipped in 50% less time than typically required
What we did:
- Identified and addressed pain points of the previous generation product and competitor products
- Crafted a distinctive design that helped establish a brand aesthetic that could be displayed in the home instead of hidden in the garage.
- Dove deep into engineering design to optimize for size, noise, durability, and performance.
- Navigated overseas contract manufacturing to ensure quality at scale
- Created a packaging solution that addressed customer experience, logistical challenges, and cost.
Not only did the end result perform as well as it looked, we also went from idea to production in less than a year. The Evolve Chiller became a best seller for the company and continues to sell to this day and serve as the backbone for the Evolve system.
The Plunge Evolve Chiller is available here.
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
We sought out to create a design as powerful as the brand.
As the company was early in its journey to develop a full product line, we had the opportunity to establish a visual language that would reflect the vision of the brand and appeal to existing customers and future customers alike.
We created a design that was easy to understand and operate while looking toward the future. Our goal was to create a chiller that stood apart from the competition and looked as great as it made people feel. While other chillers look like contraptions, the Evolve chiller looks like a minimalist sculpture - more fitting for displaying in the living room than hiding in the garage.
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN
Works as great as it looks
We had to ensure that the product hit performance targets that sets the brand apart from others. We also had to ensure that the ambitious industrial design survived to the end of the development process.
By running Industrial Design and Engineering processes in tandem, we were able to keep these goals intact while reducing development time.
MANUFACTURING
Delivering quality to customers
With the design finalized, we had to follow through on the most important part of any business - delivering the product to customers.
Hypersurface Studio was heavily involved in working through the manufacturing process with overseas suppliers, ensuring that the parts met standards and that processes were in place to maintain quality. This process is the most vital and least straightforward, as this can be affected by aspects as fundamental as design to as uncontrollable as the weather. With our experience in this realm, we were able to quickly identify and address every issue that arose and launch successfully.
We audited the manufacturing of the individual components and the integration of them to ensure the goals of industrial design and engineering are preserved as they are translated into a complete product during this vital stage.
GALLERY
