Blean

3 MONTHS

GROUP SUMMER PROJECT

BRAUN PRIZE 2021 - SUBMISSION

efficient brush cleaner

Carlos Romero & Ekaterina Tomilov

Design Brief

Design a product concept to help promote behavioral change and make an impact on today’s society and the future of our planet.

Our goal was to create a brand extension to The Wooster Brush Company, specifically their Pelican Pail.

Creating an efficient brush cleaner for professional painters by reducing cleaning time and water usage as a result.

Painters reuse brush between jobs and between colors, requiring through cleaning of wet paint and dry paint.

Good brush cost ranges between $10 - 23

5-7 minutes of running water

Takes 5-7 minutes to clean

Research: Market

Through research we discovered the following:

Dense bristles takes longer to clean thoroughly, not always successful
The brush accumulates of dried paint which damages the bristles
Exterior jobs are more demanding, leading to sticky and fast drying paint on brush
A brush is cleaned with running water and dish soap, 5-7 minutes of running water, the stem is harder to clean
Once the bristles start splitting, the brush is disposed of

A brush from painters hardware section:

Dense layout

Hard to get to the stem

Flexible bristles

... bristles start splitting ...

Industry Solutions

Existing solutions are either too big to take on a job or hard to find in a busy painter's kit. Non deals with dry paint accumulation.

Made for both brush and roller cleaning, hard to spot

A boxy cleaning area, bulky, not easily portable

Interview Painters

Interviewing professional painters for pain points and preferences.

"It's not even worth it cleaning the paint brush..."

"I just throw them out ..."

"If there was a product to help get rid of stain on a brush, I would buy it!"

Initial Ideation

Started with exploration sketches and creating works like prototypes for testing of concepts

Initial concepts focusing on sink attachments then on compact, portable pen-like structures

Smaller hand fitting prototypes

Checking different bristles combinations for through and faster cleaning

The winning combination was the spaced, rigid and spiky layout for cleaning the brush thoroughly

And the dense, flexible brush bristles for removing dry paint from the stem and bristles

Best results were with the separation of the two brushes

Concept Development & Ideation

After understanding the functionality, we starting to evolve the shape with the incorporation of ergonomics as well as the environment the product is going to be used in

New prototype, exploring rotation mechanism to incorporate the two brushes

Checking hand positions while cleaning the brush

Evolving concept to compact, ergonomic and durable brush

Final Concept

What does Blean offer?

Allows for water to get into the core of the brush

Efficient cleaning with less time and water

Scrubs off dried surface paint

Opens the brushes bristles

Through cleaning promotes longer use of a paint brush

How does it function?

The user can unlock Blean's core and rotate it until it clicks.

Now the dry brush cleaner can finish the cleaning by removing dry paint from the brush base.

At a utility sink the user runs Blean through the bristles with running water to help remove wet paint from the core.

The water seeps into the bristles through the holes in the shell.

Blean

1/6

Physical Testing

A 3D Printed prototype was made to test the concept further

Brush- required separation of brushes with attachment mechanism yet to be decided upon

Mechanism- requires further adjustments to make it secure with the incorporation of a spring and button and rotation and locking feature

Grip- was well fitted for the hand shape and motion required for the task

Actual testing with a painters brush could not happen as the 3D Printed prototype was too delicate, but I am planning on continuing my work on Blean as a personal project