Cycling. It’s the ragingly popular/eco-friendly/healthy/cheap way to get around town. I like to ride my bicycle – we all do. But it can be a pain deciding where to store the bike, especially if you live in… yeah, just about any apartment. (I have to pay $60 a year to store mine.) Solutions?
Well, you don’t want to store it outside where someone WILL steal it or weather destroy it, and storing it inside takes up too much room. What’s left? What’s left is Lift. Toronto-based product company, IPPINKA, has designed Lift, a simple wall hook aimed at decluttering your life. While its primary use is to hang bicycles, it’s made to easily hang up anything from clothes to ladders to ensure it’s all neatly out of the way.
So, what about Lift makes it different from other bike hooks?
It began with the idea of cleaning up small work/living spaces. They started with a simple, versatile wall hook concept, which took them into the research process. They wanted to know what other storage solutions were out there, but didn’t find anything that met their needs. What they did find was either too bulky or too clunky, rather than a sleek, simple design. Their goal was to create a hook that was both strong on the wall and easy on the eyes.
From there they began sketching out some designs keeping in mind the areas they wanted to hit: functional, high quality, minimal, and environmentally conscious. The hook also needed to be adaptable, able to easily blend in with any living space and used for anything, even if it’s just hanging up your fancy scarves. For this stage they iterated multiple designs to test and refine the design’s appearance. With that, of course, they needed to determine the material to use taking into account appearance, weight and strength. Through all of this, the team determined three crucial needs: to attach to a wall, to hold a heavy bike, and to be multi-use to hold more than a bike.
They combined materials to ensure strength and keep the minimal appearance: soft leather and felt for the cushioning, with steel and birch for the structure. They created prototypes made from different materials to see which would hit all the needs. The team then hooked up with makers to further refined their idea and ultimately settle on the materials – CNC-milled Baltic Birch for the base, powder-coated steel for the arm and synthetic leather for the bike tread cushion.
Together, this created the perfect hook. And yes, they even covered the multi-use aspect. The same arm that holds a bike, allows a wooden dowel to be attached, with a single cut groove to make sure anything from jackets, sweaters, scarves or bike locks stay put.
It a simple design, beautiful and minimal for sure, but the amount of work and thought that went into the product makes it so much more. We’re glad that IPPINKA shared the process along the way and hope to see other product companies follow suit.
Lift launches this week on Kickstarter, with one hook at early bird pricing of $45 and an estimated delivery of August 2016.
