Monday 12 September 2011

Habu – Kitchen knife

 Habu is a kitchen knife mainly intended for the cutting of herbs and leafy vegetables.
When I decided to design a kitchen knife, I was inspired to change how we conventionally hold kitchen knives, I conducted some research observing how different people hold and use a range of different knives of various shapes and sizes. In my observations I noticed that some of the people using a knife that didn’t have much distance between the bottom of the blade and the handle, their hand holding the knife tended to make contact with the table if they had used the entire length of the blade. Also, when using smaller knives for finer cutting, I noticed that some people were more comfortable holding the knife with their thumb or index finger on the top of the blade.
By changing the way we conventionally hold kitchen knives, Habu is able to evoke a number of pleasurable emotions within the user such as a sense of curiosity at first and then a sense of sharp sleekness when picked up, through the use of its sharp angled edges. Yet Habu is still ergonomically pleasing as well when held, with a number of cues that indicate how Habu should be held, and with a symmetrical design, Habu is comfortable both for right handed and left handed users.
The colours and material I have chosen for Habu however have been kept typical to the stainless steel metallic blade and a matt black polyoxymethylene plastic handle, which are intended to allow the knife to blend well into any kitchen environment while maintaining its functionality and waterproof feature, this way, Habu is not an eye sore in some environments as opposed to if Habu was coloured bright orange for example.
Habu is also beneficial in the sense that it is more comfortable to use in a larger range of different heights, the surface that the user is cutting on may vary in height whether it be a kitchen bench at home, a commercial kitchen bench top, or even a chopping board placed on top of two milk crates in the backyard.

6 comments:

  1. hey dom, really like your kitchen knife, when i saw and tried it today i noticed how it is VERY comfortable on the hand, my only concern is that not alot of force can be made on the knife, that aside, still a very good and easy to CONTROL knife

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  2. When i first look at it , it seems not safe and uncomfortable. But it actually works, the process experience conformable. The unique shape attract user, which makes user feel gratification when they use it. But i think user can not put many pressure on the knife, because the top part of the handle, only can put one finger on it.

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  3. Great, innovative design, you've really considered the ergonomics resulting in a truly comfortable experience for the user.

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  4. Next time put all the project components into one blog posting; people are commenting all over the placve -- here, on the hero shot, poster etc, They need to be consolidated

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  5. this design provided a more ergonomically concious way of holding the common knife. an improvement could be perhaps adding rubber grip to aid the user further

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  6. I think this is a really great knife i really like how it fits snugly the palm, but i think it would be better if the knife wasnt as long, so it feels more secure and closer to the the hand so it chopping action is more controlled

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