I led both the mechanical engineering and industrial design teams at Altierre where I was tasked to create a new design language across Altierre's entire product line of digital wireless retail price tags.
In my 4 years at Altierre, I created over 10 designs that went into production. Just a few samples are included below.
One of our highest volume products was what I coined the "W Tag". W was for win, because Altierre needed a win. Our biggest customer, Khol’s, thought the previous design was too big. Their challenge to us was to create a new design that "didn't look like a Hummer", yet be at a lower cost and still maintain a 5 year battery life.
New W Tag Previous Design
The new design, shown on the left, greatly reduced the weight and size, and eliminated paint for easier recycling at end of life. The appearance was much smaller, while utilizing basically the same LCD and internal electronics. This was achieved by revealing the bottom of the LCD where the electrical traces were, and covering it with a protective glossy film (see arrow). This film gave the appearance of a continuation of the LCD which gave the screen a much larger look. Clever reconfiguring the battery locations and electrical components further reduced the size while also reducing the cost.
The new design was a large commercial success and was created in 6 different sizes. It was responsible for over 7 million units in new sales worldwide.
I also did allot of business development work with concepts for various retail customers such as Lowe's, Target and Whole Foods. Each had a unique problem to solve and I approached each with detailed attention and fresh approach. Quite a few of these resulted in new sales, especially with our European grocery retailers.
One of these new designs was an 8" e-paper display that could sit on table tops (see below). This design was completed, tooled and produced in approximately 2 months and made it to distribution.
It featured a stiff slip-in, back-printed Polycarbonate sheet that could be easily inserted and removed by store personnel allowing them to customize it with their store logo or other promotional displays (see bottom right image).
