INTRO AND USER

ORIGINAL PRODUCT The Easton Natural is the flagship helmet for Easton baseball. Its iconic silhouette has driven it to be the best sellinghelmet Easton has ever made.

The new natural must not only work with but elevate the newfound Easton baseball design language.

LANGUAGE

The helmet will be used by players from littleleague to college ball.

USER

Z5 BATTER HELMET

INITIAL IDEATIONInitially I explored everything from external fit systems to collapsable consutruction in order to ensure the perfect fit and minimal weight for the athlete.

Z5 BATTER HELMET

INITIAL IDEATIONInitially I explored everything from external fit systems to collapsable construction in order to ensure the perfect fit and minimal weight for the athlete.

Z5 BATTER HELMET

SILHOUETTE STUDYI conducted a silhouette study in order to see where the outermost edges of our helmets lie when compared to our competitors. This will help us define shell and foam thicknesses.

DESIGN DIRECTIONI took a lot of inspiration from the Porsche 911

redesign in order to “revitalize” the old helmet design.

competitor 1

competitor 2

competitor 3

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existing helmet

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intended Silhouette

competitor 10

Z5 BATTER HELMET

PROCESSSketches, taped samples and foam half scales were all necessary to find the appropriate proportions for the features of the helmet.

Z5 BATTER HELMET

FINAL DIRECTIONAfter much deliberation the final direction was set. The above features mark the evolution from the previous design.

VENT HIGHARCHY PORSCHE COMPARISON

VENT HIERARCHYThe main vent weights were exaggerated in order to communicate the main gesture of the helmet concisely.

RHYTHMThe vent bone lines flow freely into each other taking the eye all around the helmet

MOLDED DETAILSDue to cost we were not able to afford any external trim so I added branding detail to the tool itself.

DUAL DENSITY FOAM The helmet interior energy management system consists of two different density foams optimized to absorb energy in each impact zone.

Z5 BATTER HELMET

CLAYI carved a clay “half master” to further refine the curvatures and radii of the design. The half master was scanned and turned into CAD for tooling.

Z5 BATTER HELMET

LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIESAt the 2014 Little League World Series the Z5 stole the show.