The precision cutting board was one my first projects at the Brooklyn based kitchenware company, Art + Cook.
This started as an idea by the CEO to elevate the cutting board category for Art + Cook that would later be pitched to Walmart and other big box stores.
After some initial user, market, and functionality research, we quickly found a lot of cutting boards that helped with prep and cleanup, but not with assisting while the actual cutting took place.
As far as material, we quickly narrowed down to PP with a TPR foot due a request from our buyer and internal reasons to keep cohesive with our line.
We felt we found our niche in the market after studying the competition.
We started asking question about how our cutting board would help people cut and slice.
What if the cutting board could help stabilize and even guide cuts?
So we explored some concepts of cutting boards with ‘teeth’ that opened and closed flush into the board. Although this was a good idea and more ideal for storage, we found it increased the cost too much for Art + Cook and was a bit too complicated for our buyer.
So we moved on.
*Note note all sketches during this period were not saved, so I am showing what we have.
After some more sketching, we naturally transitioned to a board that was all one piece.
We knew we lost some ability for storage, but you saved on mold fees and extra pieces.
The pros and cons lead to this choice and initial sketch.
So we had our concept and basic design. Now we got down to the details to further define the spline sizes and user experience.
How tall did it have to be? What were the depths of vegetables? What were the common fruits and vegetables used? What types of knives were used?
There were numerous questions we asked ourselves to finalize our design. We decided to study the foods a user would cut.
First we studied length + diameter of some common vegetables and made our design choices off of this.
From here, we knew the rough dimensions of our ‘spine’.
We 3D printed some isolated models to test vegetables of different sizes to make sure our guides could adapt to most vegetables.
As expected, we ran into some problems and this research really helped us focus in on usability. From here we adjusted the height, depth, and space in-between the splines to allow for a more even cut.
This also lead to our decision to add a divot in the board to help stabilize spherical fruits/vegetables when cutting.
With this feedback, we refined the CAD models further and fully 3D printed the spline portion of the board.
User testing was important here to develop our design from our initial concept above to what you see below.
Some small details in the channel around the perimeter, hang hole placement, logo placement, cutting surface size, and finalization of the spline and location of the ‘divot’ were all key design changes we noticed in user testing.
We made some small refinements to the spline, and made sure the functionality of the channel and splines worked as intended with all different types of knives and foods.
We prepared a design package containing a 3D file, CMF file, and technical drawing file to receive some initial quotes. After some back and forth with our factory, we received an initial sample we were quite happy with.
Next steps were just some small color matching, CMF, logo adjustments and finalizing the color choices for the board.
This board was eventually brought to market after my time at Art + Cook. I believe it was sold in stores like Walmart, Big Lots, and sold on HSN and QVC.
