/ 9/11/2016 Celebrating a decade of decoration with Harris

We’re proud to be celebrating our long-standing partnership with decorating product manufacturer LG Harris, which has just reached its tenth anniversary.

We started back in 2006, when Tony Blair was Prime Minister and Sven-Goran Eriksson was the England football manager. Remember them?

Over the years, AME’s product design expertise has helped Harris to develop a range of innovative decorating tools for professionals and DIY enthusiasts that have reinforced its market-leading position in the UK and helped the brand in their drive for global growth.

Our first project saw us flex our problem-solving muscles against the age-old decorating problem of roller slippage.

Our design team cracked this challenge by engineering a simple expanding ring which, when activated, gripped the inside of the sleeve to hold it in place. This led to the production of the Harris Lock ‘n’ Roll roller, which is simple to use and straight-forward to manufacture.

Our work for Harris has also included running creative workshops to generate product ideas and identify market opportunities. We help take ideas through the product development process to create aesthetic and ergonomic design solutions that address technical complexity and aid product differentiation. Most importantly, we enable Harris to validate proposed concepts and technical requirements before volume manufacturing, helping to reduce unnecessary costs. This approach was evident in our work on the Gel tool range.

Harris asked us to develop a range of decorating tools that would differentiate them in a competitive market. We explored the design of handles form and grip to improve the ergonomics and comfort for users. The result was to add gel pads that relieved stress and fatigue when using tools over a long period. Our engineers were able to realise the concepts in 3D CAD and enabled Harris to mass manufacture the handles at a low cost while maintaining high quality standards.

There have been many highlights over the last decade. We designed and developed the third-generation No Loss paint brush one of Harris’s best-selling products. Developing an ergonomic handle for improved accuracy and comfort alongside a more contemporary look that helped differentiate it from it predecessor whilst echoing the family resemblance.

Harris used our in-house prototyping facility to produce low volume, vacuum-cast batches of the No Loss brushes for consumer and retailer’s assessment, before committing to the high cost of volume production.

More recently, we helped Harris to develop the Icon tool range, developed exclusively for B&Q, which introduced a new design language for a range of tools that use less material, whilst still offering excellent ergonomics, no compromise on functionality and having a big impact at point of sale. 

A big thank you to Harris for providing us with the opportunity to work on some fantastic projects and develop some great products in the process, here’s to the next ten years!

www.harrisbrushes.com