GRIND LIFE
NIKE X OPENIDEO CIRCULAR INNOVATION CHALLENGE
Cross Functional Collaboration | Product Innovation | Concept Generation | Storyboarding | Visual Design | Prototyping
How might we create a waste-free, circular future by designing everyday products using reclaimed Nike Grind materials?
Being an athlete is an identity, which doesn’t end when the workout is over. Grind Life proposes to fill the gaps, establishing a full performance lifestyle. Our team envisioned a new Nike partnership to create upcycled products that activate physical and mental performance in otherwise stagnant settings, from anti-fatigue mats that promote circulation to wobble stools that activate stabilizing muscles. We identified an exciting opportunity to expand the space opened by athleisure, while racing to a circular future. This partnership would reinforce Nike’s commitment to sustainability and pass the baton to Grind Life to innovate our physical environment.
SUMMARY
CROSS FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION
As a team, our collective backgrounds included experience in circular economy innovation, user research, industrial design, product design, manufacturing, and biomechanics.
product innovation
Our major insight was identifying the opportunity area of "off-the-field" active products that could be manufactured using reclaimed performance materials. In a conventional daily routine, active individuals participate in discrete periods of high activity, potentially leaving long periods of inactivity. We imagined bridging those moments with new everyday products that facilitate continued performance. Noticing that our target market could undergo frequent transitions in life in addition to daily routines, we also innovated on a concept business model, leveraging the use of reground raw materials to establish a subscription-based take-back and regrind process that could feed back into itself.
I developed graphical representations to illustrate our insights and assisted with development of our concept business model.
concept generation and storyboarding
We brainstormed an assortment of concepts that could create the Grind Life product line. In order to tie all of these products together coherently, I developed a storyboard of a day in the life of our target user, which was later refined for submission.
I also developed and illustrated a manufactured product concept for our submission. The idea was to take the multi-layered performance of an athletic shoe and transform it into a surface that could be present in everyday environments, with or without those shoes. This concept incorporated Nike Grind materials and took advantage of their intrinsic high performance characteristics.
prototyping
Since Nike Grind material wasn't provided to teams, I created my own regrind from products at the end of their current lifecycles. This handmade regrind was used to illustrate and prototype our manufactured product concept of an anti-fatigue mat.
key learnings
Use journey-mapping to identify opportunity areas—our team’s insight of bringing performance to everyday life came from moving our focus away from traditional performance activities to thinking about the user as an athlete throughout their entire day.
Select a compelling hero product for storytelling—instead of highlighting an anti-fatigue mat to represent our concept product portfolio, it would have served us better to pick a more exciting hero product.