Building a Heritage
Professional gardeners have trusted Corona tools since the 1920s. Fluctuating market conditions challenged them to take an honest look at their brand and create a product design strategy to propel them into the future. Corona wanted to create a new cutting tool line that honored their successful legacy, while leveraging innovation to make it easier to prune plants, bushes and trees for generations of gardeners in the 21st century.
Gardener-Inspired Innovation
Priority Designs’ first task was to connect with professionals and passionate gardeners at work, home, and retail. Extensive ethnographic research was conducted in Midwest, Southern and Western regions to better understand similarities, differences and challenges of using pruners, loppers and hedge shears. Insight gained from the research led to the design of a dual-cut strategy. A notch was placed near the tool’s pivot to encourage users to cut thick branches in a location that leverages mechanical advantage to reduce effort and it also prevents branches from rolling away from this optimized cut position. The blade includes a secondary angle to allow quick pruning of thin branches closer to the tip. Multiple rounds of prototypes were fabricated to test function and ergonomic comfort with a variety of gardeners. Ultimately, this speed and ease strategy was scaled into the full range of cutting tools through a forged manufacturing process that provides maximum durability and the means to re-sharpen the tools season after season.
A Cut Above
An innovative, simple product design strategy resulted in happy gardeners, increased sales, a reinvigorated Corona brand and tools that are a cut above competitors’.
