Youth innovation at its best
The co-creation of a sustainable ‘on-the-go’ product with a design student from Nottingham Trent University is the perfect example of how Quadpack fosters and collaborates with young talent.
Like many final year students, Harry Allsop had a question to answer in his major project at Nottingham Trent University: how to make personal care more convenient on the go? His goal was to develop a beauty product that could be both functional and sustainable, attributes that are much sought-after by brands and consumers.
Allsop completed a 16-month internship with Quadpack’s Design Team before undertaking his major project in his final year at university. Together, they created four insights to be considered throughout this brief, namely technology, form and function, gesture and sustainability. After in-depth research and many hours of ideation and sketch work, the initial project was refocused on ‘athleisure beauty’, an emerging trend in personal care in sports environments. “My target market was people from my generation, university students who have similar habits. So, I started researching to understand what they would consider convenient and useful,” says Allsop.
The final concept was a product line called Nort, a refillable system which uses single-use pods to dispense solid formulas. It hooks into the waterless beauty trend and it has a strong sustainable feature - besides being refillable, the product was developed to be made of biobased, compostable Sulapac® material. To complement the range and enhance the ‘on-the-go’ solution, he also created a mini bag that could also serve as an accessory for travelling.
According to Allsop, the internship and the co-creation process was a unique opportunity. “I had the chance to work with great people and learned so much by being part of a global team. It was an amazing experience that surely helped my personal development,” he says. Katie Hoddinott, Quadpack’s Design Team Leader, believes the internship is a two-way learning process, allowing both parties the opportunity to grow. “Harry proved to be an asset to the Design Team, displaying great energy and ownership, while we were in a position to support him with model making, technical expertise and market research,” she explains. Ultimately, it’s about investing in future talent and sharing time, experience, knowledge and belief.