Checked out our video review of the Cuts+More? Good. Now we have a chat with industrial designer Colin Roberts from Fiskars Americas on the design, research, and manufacturing of this schizophrenic little pair o' snips.
Core77: The Cuts+More is a diverse pair of scissors. What was the assignment you received, what in particular were you asked to design? Was the product envisioned with all of this functionality from the very start?
Colin Roberts: The original concept - drawn up by our product manager who studied engineering and is no doubt a bona fide scissors geek - called for a multifunctional utility scissors. The innovative functionality came later.
The heritage and legacy of being the World's #1 Scissors Brand is really important to us. We wanted to build off our expertise to create a more versatile cutting tool to help make everyday tasks in the home easier.
Can you tell us about the design process, from start to finish? And were there any problems or surprises that cropped up during the design process?
It was a very "fuzzy front end" type project, but I think from the beginning we knew we had a product opportunity whose time had come. Our goal was to focus on the end user and design in added utility that solves for the consumer's everyday needs. Yes, it's a scissors with a lot of features, but anyone can make that - the question is why? What kinds of added functionality will meet the tasks? We focused on the solution, knowing the features and design would follow.
Our research process was both qualitative and quantitative...
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