Glide

Role: Senior Design Manager, Joseph Joseph

This project was developed during my time as Senior Design Manager at Joseph Joseph, where I led product strategy and development, aligning design, engineering and manufacturing teams to bring innovative products from insight to market.

Insight

Despite being found in millions of homes, the ironing board has remained largely unchanged for decades. Research revealed that consumers viewed ironing boards as awkward, inconvenient products that were difficult to store, cumbersome to carry and frustrating to set up. Many accepted these frustrations as inevitable, highlighting an opportunity to challenge the category's established conventions and rethink the entire ownership experience.

Opportunity

The opportunity was to redesign the ironing board from first principles, addressing every stage of the user journey from storage and transportation through to setup and ironing. The ambition was to create a product that felt immediately familiar to users while delivering meaningful improvements through innovation, engineering and thoughtful design. A key objective was to develop proprietary intellectual property that could establish a new benchmark within the category and provide a platform for future growth.

Solution

Glide was built around a patented compact leg mechanism developed in collaboration with an engineer. Unlike traditional boards, both legs fold towards the nose of the board, nesting together to significantly reduce folded size while eliminating the snagging often associated with conventional structures. The redesign extended beyond the mechanism, incorporating an integrated carry handle and hanging solution for easier storage, alongside a heat-resistant silicone iron rest integrated directly into the cover to create a more compact and contemporary form. Every detail was engineered to improve usability while maintaining the familiarity consumers expect from an ironing board.

Outcome

Glide transformed a decades-old product archetype through a combination of customer insight, mechanical innovation and thoughtful design. The patented platform has since been expanded into a family of products across multiple sizes and price points, helping strengthen Joseph Joseph's position within the category. The project demonstrates how rethinking accepted conventions can unlock meaningful innovation, create defensible intellectual property and deliver long-term commercial success.