Retro Light

Design a flashlight in the style of an established brand

Shinola is a Detroit based lifestyle brand best known for its watches. The brand is lauded for its American craftsmanship and attention to ascetic.

When approaching designing for Shinola, I first wanted to become fluent in their design language. To do so I immersed myself in the company's history and culture, ultimately isolating the design principles that guide the creation of their entire product line.

In addition to the brand's unifying design principles, it is imperative to understand who the target user is. A product may be ascetically inline but can easily fall flat in the business case due to a lack of understanding when it comes to who is being sold to.

I decided to move toward a lower functionality, high quality statement piece that doubles as a coffee table or shelf decoration. I wanted it to have enough weight to look substantial but be small enough to fit in a messenger bag.

After exploring a large variety of possible designs I settled on an industrial pipe inspired, leather bound, and chrome finished flashlight. The lines are very simple and put a large amount of emphasis on the materials.

The flashlight is designed to be an extension of the esteemed Shinola watch. I wanted to expand the watch face lengthwise, keeping many of the main forms while also playing around with key design elements.

To get a better idea of what the design would look like as a 3D object, I created an orthographic and then hand filed and sanded a 1:1 scale model out of modulan foam. The model showcases the flashlight's form and some of its key details.

One of the flashlight's displayed features is the dimmer dial. By expanding and transposing the Shinola watch crown, I created a sleek and intuitive way to turn the light on and off as well as control its brightness.

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