Carlton

Premium business luggage range — product identity study

Strengthen the brand iden­tity of Carlton on the European mar­ket with a new range of more premi­um busi­ness lug­gage. The chal­lenge was to renew itself with a line of 3 sizes lug­gage with stronger design codes and which could become the emblem of the brand. The tech­nic­al con­straints were to use Polycarbonate (PC) and an alu­min­um frame.

Providing solu­tions that max­im­ize the con­veni­ence and effect­ive­ness of lug­gage for fre­quent use. The 3 sizes of lug­gage must be nest able. Telescopic tubes for retract­able handle integ­rated in the shell, in order to both ensure the sound­ness of the mech­an­ism, but also offer an almost flat inside to save space stor­age. TSA lock­ing sys­tem. The alu­min­um frame was replaced by a Zip sys­tem in the final ver­sion of the lug­gage, to gain even more lightness.

Backstage of the project

Brand val­ues

Illustration of brand val­ues Carlton, with its defin­i­tions and, for each, value a form­al illus­tra­tion, which allows a bet­ter over­view of the brand and its uni­verse. Those val­ues will be form­al­ized dur­ing the design research stage.

Smart: Luggage that are both eleg­ant, and ingeni­ously design and man­u­fac­tured offer­ing smart and ergo­nom­ic solutions.

Timeless: Luggage which are made to last, both because of their qual­ity, reli­ab­il­ity, and time­less design.

Distinctive: Luggage that are dif­fer­ent; lug­gage that pos­sess a kind of eleg­ant uniqueness.

Qualitative: Luggage which are per­ceived as good/high qual­ity by user because of the right choice of mater­i­als, fin­ishes and functionality.

Project trend axis

Inspiration from the premi­um auto­mot­ive trend (Audi TT 2nd gen­er­a­tion) with a “young busi­ness man” spir­it. Strict shapes, sober col­ors. It’s a busi­ness line, which has to emphas­ize the ser­i­ous­ness and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of their users dur­ing their busi­ness trips. Importance of soph­ist­ic­ated details, premi­um fin­ish. Clever and func­tion­al sys­tems for stor­age and use. Highlight of a recog­niz­able detail, which allows an imme­di­ate iden­ti­fic­a­tion of busi­ness pos­i­tion­ing of the range.

Design research

Research of a strong design code: a ver­tic­al cent­ral strip with alu­min­um fin­ish, to visu­ally pos­i­tion the lug­gage range in the busi­ness premi­um world. This strip allows dif­fer­ent fin­ishes pro­pos­als for the same lug­gage (leath­er fin­ish­ing, chrome etc …). It also incor­por­ates a retract­able hook (to hang a bag for example) hid­den by the brand logo. Vertical lines cre­ates a graph­ic­al effect which the cent­ral strip, rein­for­cing the busi­ness aspect of the luggage.

Concept stage

The ver­tic­al lines are simple to rein­force the sober look and ser­i­ous­ness that we expect from a busi­ness lug­gage. The ver­tic­al lines are struc­tur­ing the lug­gage and give more rigid­ity to its struc­ture. Hanging points at the angles and integ­rated into the alu­min­um frame can be used to hang small bags. Small stor­age sys­tems are integ­rated in the back of the lug­gage, as well as inside of the cab­in trunk for bet­ter stor­age optimization.