Pirate Lab — Alexis Schilf

Pirate Lab: Designing luxury accessories for gamers

My Role

During my time at 511 Capital, I was the lead designer and engineer for new product development at Pirate Lab LLC.

The Challenge

How can we create sleek and highly functional cases for gamers?

Skills

Research

Harnessing my inner gamer through interviews and field research

For these products extensive user research and testing was conducted to create the best possible product. My focus was to learn more about the needs of card players for trading card games. Learn more about my extensive user research here.

Research at the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show. Image description: Convention center filled with crowds of people — *Research at the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Trade Show.*

Pitching Pirate Lab products. Image description: Picture of a woman showing a gaming backpack to a man taking pictures of the backpack. — *Pitching Pirate Lab products at a gaming convention.*

Prototyping and Testing

Designing mockups of functional and sleek cases

Using origami as inspiration I mocked up a few concepts. I began with paper and foam in a small size and built up to creating a full size mock-up with chipboard.

*First mockups started small, about 2 inches with paper and foam for two card deck design.*

*Full size paper mockup for two card deck design.*

*Full size paper mockup, with opening and closing feature.*

I used this mock-up as a conversation starter to talk with users about their initial thoughts and feedback before investing time and money into prototyping with a factory.

Image description: Cardboard prototype of a deck box holding some cards — *Cardboard prototype of a deck box holding some cards*

By observing users work with the prototypes, we needed to change the direction of opening and add a lid to the dice container. Understanding how customers actually interact with the product versus how we designed it to work were invaluable in designing a product people would buy.

First prototype testing with cards and die. Image description: Deck box folded open. Interior has three storage containers, with one filled with cards. — *The first prototype tested two card containers and one open die container.*

A few rounds of prototyping later…die container is removable, stronger materials used, and thumb grooves to remove cards. Image description: Interior of deck box exposed showing three containers - two holding cards and one with lid to hold die. — *A few rounds of prototyping later…die container is removable, stronger materials used, and thumb grooves to remove cards.*

Developing durable, injection-molded cases

In addition to the card cases designed with fabric + chipboard and a magnet closure, I partnered with another designer to create a product line of injection molded cases. Research with users showed us the need of both a hinged and pull-off top design.

Manufacturing

Working directly with manufacturers

I worked with our engineering team in Asia to outsource the manufacturing of this product line. Before moving into production, I visited the factory in Asia to ensure quality and discuss any questions with the vendors. The outsource factory for the fabric+ chipboard cases was inconsistent in their precision of my measurements, so I had to work with the factory to create a testing procedure to ensure precision and accuracy.

This included having the factory measure all inventory to ensure it was within the provided tolerances. Errors in measurement would mean that user would not be able to fit all of their cards or fit their irregular die.

Card cases in manufacturing with gluing process. Image description: papers on a table next to a gluing machine — *Card cases in manufacturing with gluing process.*

Image description: Exterior of factory buildings — *Manufacturing facility*

Finalizing the tooling, logo, and design

For the injection-molded cases, we visited the tooling vendor, exploring logo manufacturing methods, and printed design methods.

Image description: Tooling for the injection molded cases.

Image description: Gif of black box with lid being pulled off and put back on.

Image description: Gif of a box with an attached lid opening and closing. Exterior of the box is purple galaxy.

Exploration into different printing methods. Image description: Large scale manufacturing printing machine

Final Products

Launching large capacity card cases

Durable, sleek cases to fit 80, 120, or 240 cards. These products are for sale here.

Image description: Open deck box to show interior of deck box holding cards. Picture is taken at an angle. On the table behind are Pirate Lab business cards and 4 other deck cards in various colors.

“I'm a huge fan of piratelab so when I saw these I had to jump on them. The stitching is great both inside and out. The magnets are strong to keep your deck safe in place.” - John G.

Image description: closed, rectangular deck box

Image description: Open deck box filled with cards and showing die

Image description: Black, small deck box

Image description: Open, small deck box showing cards and blue interior

Launching durable card cases to express gamers’ personalities

Injection-molded cases in 4 unique designs – hinged, pull top, geometric texture, and scale texture. The designs have over 20 patterns and colors. The products are for sale here.

Image description: Deck boxes on a shelf. Various patterns on the deck boxes including black, octopus, donuts, and mountains.

Image description: Close up view of multi-color, geometric deck box.

“This is my 3rd and 4th Defender Deck Box by piratelab, I picked up two of them a month ago, and loved them so much I had to get 2 more. These boxes are tough, they look great and don’t take up any extra space in your bag! They fit a double sleeved EDH deck perfectly, you CAN fit a few extra tokens in with the deck, but you dont feel like you have too. The tops fit snugly and don’t feel like they will give loose unless you want them too. That's not to say they are too hard to get off either, just a gentle squeeze in the middle and the top comes off without a fight.

Also, did I mention they look great? and the texture on the outside feels really nice too. Oh, and not a huge deal, but they send extra labeling stickers with the box, so it’s easy to relabel the boxes as you change decks out. Not that I have found the need to label any of them, they just stand out enough that you shouldn't forget what boxes go to what decks.” - Corry L.

Image description: Deck box with cats and lasers

Image description: Yellow, green, and blue layered deck box

Image description: Light blue and dark blue vertically striped deck box

Launching the infinity game tote for board game night

I co-designed a game tote to meet a market gap for tabletop gamers. The product is now sold out.

Image description: Woman standing and carrying a black game tote

Image description: Woman sitting with game tote. Bag has black strap on the woman’s shoulder

Image description: Close up view of woman unzipping the black game tote

“We love the game tote and how customizable it is! We bring board games and lots of other items with us frequently when traveling, so it's a great hands-free option!” - Bryan H.

Image description: Black game tote, rectangular in shape with black straps

Image description: Black game tote half open to show blue, soft interior fabric and some game boxes

Image description: Close up view of the velcro protecting a game box edge

Reverse-engineering to understand user needs

The engineer in me had a great time tearing apart, re-assembling and learning from competitors. I learned from competitors’ design decisions, researched materials and manufacturing methods, and identified design opportunities for Pirate Lab.

To see the research that went into these products, check out my gaming research case study.

case studies

Pirate Lab: Designing luxury accessories for gamers