Amplify your session.
Yurbuds, a St. Louis, MO start-up, crashed into the world of endurance sports in 2009. They brought to market earphones that never hurt and never fall out - an ideal combination of form and function for Ironman competitors, super marathoners, and CrossFit die-hards. After their acquisition in the Harman International family of brands, the industrial designers and engineers sought to bring the technology of Yurbuds to the action sports market.
Never falls out. Durable build. Comfort fit. Custom cord control. Introducing JBL Monarch.
Our internal team brainstormed a list of potential names longer than a set of earphone cords. I chose to design into the name Monarch, a strong suggestion to the reign of JBL as a contemporary and winning brand full of history in bringing big sound to its consumers. The Monarch earphone combines JBL Signature Sound with Yurbuds award-winning Twistlock Technology, and a brand new cord management system.
Research. Ride. Repeat.
To design a set of earphones that would hold up for use during action sports, Yurbuds teamed up with a group of industrial design and consumer research experts. Together, we spent a week with skateboarders and BMX riders to test our designs and conduct market research and testing. We compared several other industry leaders, and our cord control technology offered the widest range use, allowing riders to choose 1 or 2 bud use, and ride even longer without adjusting their earphones.
Analysis + Insights
After days of testing and polling our riders, we pulled together their insights on color, packaging, and branding for further rounds of design. Through this project, I compiled the majority of our information into presentations.
Back to the board.
After our research summit, our team compared feedback we received on our box form, copy, and imagery and colors. We zeroed in on bold type and imagery relevant to the action sports world - snow packed slopes and cement pipes combined with impactful but simple messaging. The JBL brand was ready to market to a demographic that was underserved.
My final solution included eye-catching colors and feature benefits in multiple places. The 4-sided design allows the logos to be seen from multiple views once merchandised in stores, creating multiple opportunities for identity recognition of the JBL brand. The final product was brought to market under the name JBL Grip. The packaging included multiple views of the product to show off the custom cord control function, and incorporated elements from each member of our design team.
Credit for this project also belongs to Annie Karayannis, Katie Connors, Amber Condomitti, Troy Brennan, Tim Schrieber, Mike Bolster, Eric Sia, and Ryan Ott. All iterations of this product concept including the imagery, packaging, and product, and logos are property of Harman International, or free-use stock photos.