Sili-Soothe & Teethe™ Silicone Pacifier & Teether
Teething babies gnaw on everything they can get their hands on — including their beloved pacifiers. That's why Munchkin created a multitasking soother that's easy on baby's gums, in pastels that are easy on the eyes. The Sili-Soothe & Teethe™ Silicone Pacifier & Teether set includes two durable, multi-textured pacifiers that soothe sore gums with their uniquely ridged surface. Made from 100% food-grade silicone in aesthetically pleasing tones, the one-piece design is safe for even the tiniest teethers to chew. The pacifiers' ability to pull double duty means less clutter and longer usefulness, too — making it a smart and practical addition to your nursery essentials list.
Client: Munchkin, Inc.
Year: 2020
Price: $8.99
Challenge
• Create a pacifier that can also be used as a teether, and it should be lightweight and hands-free, so a child can play with both hands.
• Research various types of pacifiers and teethers in the market and analyzed each through qualities, function, and materials.
• Work closely with Compliance engineers to understand global safety lab requirements and go through the risks, pros, and cons of creating a product of its kind.
• Able to freeze the pacifier/teether for cooling comfort.
Contribution
• Day-to-day interaction with Engineers, Marketing, Costing, Packaging, and PD Management. Lead the entire industrial design process, including ideation, competitor research, material research, sketching, prototyping, 3D CAD construction, 3D rendering, design proposals, CMF specification, and sample reviews.
• Created a unique and modern design with 3-dimensional patterns and textures that are not only visually interesting but there is a reason why textures are on the product as an intended feature.
• Munchkin’s existing colors for the product lines are normally saturated chromatic hues such as magenta, cyan, and purple with a hint of white. For these brand new category of products, using saturated color were not favored by Sales and retail buyers. To expand the CMF options for the company, I helped to organize a team of other product designers and selected the best possible soft pastel color which looks and feels suitable for the brand and as gentle as possible.
Achievements
• Designing teethers wasn’t something easy for the company as there are literally hundreds of thousands of teethers saturated in this market, and another teether throwing into a retail space would be meaningless. Understanding the pain points of the users and what was missing in the product segment was an important finding.
• Received above 4.5 customer rating on Amazon.com.
• The product was well received by both internal and external customers, and Munchin was able to gain a retail peg space at Target.
Designed in 2019
Copyright and utility patent own by Munchkin, inc.
