Philips commissioned master students Integrated Product Design to develop a domestic appliance. In my case that was a steam iron. During extensive user studies of current day steam irons, I identified a niche-market for male ironers. On the one hand, they proved to be less skillful then women, while on the other hand, they have high demands in terms of ironing.
Men showed clearly two issues in ironing. First, they claim to have insufficient know-how about ironing; and second, their handling was downright clumsy. Now, I don’t think men are particularly bad ironers, however, they just do not seem to care about the act of it.

I took this as a starting point and attempted to come up with a concept that sparked the interested of men for ironing again. Both the handling and aesthetics were dramatically changed to give completely new associations to ironing. Furthermore, the traditional interface is replaced with a smarter kind.
The design was inspired on other stainless steel products of Philips, that cater for the ‘premium’ segment. I dared to propose this product as 001 – the start of the new iron age. (It was awarded best product presentation in the category garment care.)

Below is a video that presents the design.