EverChew Product

Today we have a treat! I had the opportunity to interview a client of mine, Kirby Kendall, creator and inventor of the EverChew. A rawhide chew device that eliminates the possibility of choking for your dogs! He speaks to us about his invention and its creation, while I speak about the logo I made for this very project.

RMA: Hi Kirby, I wanted you to first of all introduce yourself, give us some info on your background. What do you do for a living in regards to this project?

KK: I am a research chemist by training, but I’ve been a garage inventor for 15 years now. Even as a kid, I wanted to be an inventor. I do inventing for my day job but, I want something to be successful on my own. And so that’s what the EverChew, this dog rawhide toy is for me.

RMA: I’ll also introduce myself, my name is Kimberly (Red Moth Art), I am a graphic designer/illustrator. And I love art, I love to illustrate ever since I was a tiny little kid. I’m glad I can do that for a living, be it more technical or creative for companies.

RMA: So explain to me, what is your device, what does it do?

KK: Well, the EverChew came out of the fact that my dog is sometimes kinda stupid. Even though she’s a golden doodle, supposed to be smart. When she’d get to the last, little stub of a rawhide roll and you’d walk  into the room, she thinks you’re going to take it. A couple of time she gagged, one time I had to reach into her throat and pull it out. So I thought, there has to be a way of preventing that from happening.

 

Eva – Lovable idiot/ Inspirational muse

I couldn’t find any products on the market that worked with regular rawhide rolls. There’s some compressed rings and things like that, but nothing like the standard roll. So I started developing something, went through a whole bunch of different prototypes and about two years later, I got what I call the Ever Chew.

Eva – Quality Control Officer

RMA: Cool, necessity really is the mother of invention. What were the biggest obstacles in creation?

KK: Coming up with a design that met the requirements. I had set out a list of requirements that the product would have to meet.

1. No Metal – It had to be all rubber and plastic. Even if the metal was recessed. Because, worst case scenario this is the yard, you don’t see it, mow over it and the metal is exposed. The dog plays with it and its mouth gets cut up
2. No Tools – No screws, no pliers, no bolts or anything. Something easy to put together and would work only with fingers.
3. Undefeatable by my dog. That was actually the hardest part. She would continually find a way to rip the rawhide out of different designs that I thought were fantastic. She would get the rawhide free, I’d see her wandering about the house with just the rawhide. And, the device would be nowhere to be found.

 

 Requirements met!

This was the hardest challenge, it took a lot of work but I finally got there. I made something that she’s never defeated.

RMA: Good, I‘m really happy to hear that. So, give us a timeline of the products creation from start to finish.

KK:Two years. I spent about a year working and getting to a design I liked. I filed a provisional patent application on that. Then, another year of refinement and figuring out how to make my working design manufacturable at a reasonable cost

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Early Prototype Starting Points

How is this going to be made at a decent price? Who’s going to make it? Where am I going to make it? What rubber will it be made out of? That’s what the past six to eight months have been about.

RMA: We all have a process in creating or designing, what is yours?

KK: I think mine is, I need to have some requirements that must be met. Because if you don’t, when you hit a roadblock, you’ll just say “Oh that doesn’t matter.”

For example, “It’s not important that the person not have to use a screw driver. This design needs a screwdriver, it’s good enough.” Well no.  I have got the requirements of no screwdrivers, it’s non-negotiable. So, it forces  me not to give up, forces me  to try harder.

The other is, just trying something. There will be a time where I needed a certain type of rubber material to do an experiment. I order it, and it’ll take some time to come in, since it’s a special order but, in the meantime try something. Try anything. Tear up something in the garage and cobble it together. “Oh,  that idea  sucked anyway, let’s just move on. 

 Collection of prototypes to final design, in order of creation

Kirby describes the different above prototypes in greater detail, detailing the modifications that gave way to the final design.

Doing things really fast, trying horrible-looking experiments give you enough information as a proof of concept. Or not.

RMA: Absolutely, you learn more from failure than you do success, right?.

KK: Yes! Lot’s of failures. Got a whole bag of ‘em.

RM: Describe the best things about this product.

KK: One, it works as intended. It keeps the dog from choking on the rawhide.

The extra benefit, is when she eats the rawhide, she gets down flush to the ring in 15/30 min like a regular rawhide. But then, she’s working on that last little bit trapped in the ring, covered in dog spit she tears it out in little shreds. It can take care from between 1,2 to 4 hours to tear out all the little pieces.

  Close ups of EverChew Product

Not only does it have a safety aspect, it also keeps her busy and occupied. When she finally tears it free, she’s out of breath and exhausted.

RM: That’s a really nice side benefit for the dog. Why would dog owners love this product?

I think it gives them two things. The comfort, assurance that their dog won’t choke with the rawhide.

The second thing, is they know their dog will get enjoyment out of it for longer than a regular rawhide.

Actually, you can do a cost benefit thing. So, you’re buying this ring which costs extra money. The rawhides for this product are all-natural, high quality and US-made. So, they are pricier than the cheap rawhides you can buy. But if you look at the amount of time the dog has to spend with the rawhide, you can actually save money in the long run.

 

 Ever Chew exclusively uses Tasman’s Rahides made from 100% all-natural US Beef.

So there’s a financial benefit as well.

RM:Good, I’m glad you brought that up. Why would dogs love this product?

KK: Well, she adores it! I do most of my work out in the garage. Drilling things, molding urethane/rubber rings ,and things like that, I’m always out there messing around. Whenever I walk out of my garage door,  my dog is always waiting just right inside the house to see if I have a prototype for her to test.

Ever Chew Logo Design

RM: Now we’re going to talk a little more about my side of things which is the logo design. At what point did you need a logo?

KK: I wasn’t sure I was going to need one. I assumed I didn’t, I would worry about that sort of thing after it becomes a real product after Kickstarter. Talking to the marketing agency I got, he said,

“Make sure not only upload your photos in to the shared drive, upload your logo as well.”

“…I don’t have a logo.”

“ Well you got to have a logo!”

“Why  do I need a logo? It’s a Kickstarter campaign, I don’t need one yet.”

RM: -. (laughs)As a graphic designer, I just died a little bit.

KK: (laughs) I’m sorry.

He was saying that even if we’re just doing Facebook ads, out sending email campaigns, it’s the brand recognition.

“They may the read the first email, they may ignore the second, but by the third one they’ll recognize the picture in the corner. So, they’ll click on it and it’ll refresh their memory. That’s why it’s important to have a logo. So go get one.”

RM: Definitely. As a graphic designer, I could go on and on about why it’s important to have a logo designed. But, I’ll just simplify it too. You’ve made a really interesting product, you understand the technical side of it. But for someone else, they need to have a face/symbol/artwork associated with it. It attracts attention to your product which translates to customers.

 

 

 

 

 

 Looks better with a logo than without doesn’t it?

KK: I mean it works for Nike, right?

RM: Right. Automatically, you hear of Nike and you understand the product, lifestyle, and even the premium .

RM: – That goes into our next question, what design preferences if any, did you have for the logo?

KK: The only preferences I had was to make you think of a dog when you saw it. Since we’re advertising on Facebook, dog lovers love anything with a dog on it, so it would at least catch their eye.

The other thing I wanted, looking around at Facebook ads, I noticed that the logos were very small a lot of the times. Half an inch, quarter of an inch, a really small size. I wanted it to look like a dog that small. So, it couldn’t be so detailed, or have so much extra noise in the background that you couldn’t recognize it when it was a quarter inch diameter.

Logo Sizes Comparison

RM: -I know the logo process from my side here as the designer, but what is it like from the client side?

KK: (chuckles) Well, it was easy. You did all the work.

 The hardest part was trying to identify someone that would do good work. It was just a matter of googling like crazy looking for examples. I wanted someone local to Austin so that we could meet and talk.

RM: Yeah,you get rid of a lot of problems in  project when speaking face to face.

KK: So it was perfect, we meet for lunch, you saw the product. You got to handle the product and took pictures. We got to talk things through, it was easy that way.

First samples used for logo inspiration

 

RM: Did you have any anxiety of the design samples? Were you worried about the work?

KK:No. I saw your work and knew we’d come up with something.

RM: Good to hear! Some of my clients are really nervous about the whole process and I have to calm them down a little bit.

KK:No it was fine. I had a vision I had sketched up in Power Point, it looked like a vampire dog! But, it was a starting point. It wasn’t going to work the way I had in my head obviously. But, you were able to spin it and give me several drawings to start.

Behold the vampire dog logo starting point.

Some of them would’ve been great if I was a more established brand and this was a new rawhide product line. One design focused more on the device itself, it had the swirl of the ring and roll. But, since it was a brand new product, so it need to have a dog icon.

Collection of Thumbnails

I remember I was able to say, “Take this element from this drawing and combine it with that one.” You then threw in a few artistic elements. The ear is flipped as if in motion and there’s a little shine on the nose.

Collection of Black and White Mockups

RM: The good news, is that later on as your brand becomes more established, you can change the logo. Companies update their logos over time.

KK: I could only be so lucky.

RM: You always want to combine aspects of the technical, practical and artistic. The artistic draws the eye, the practical is the selling point and the technical is your expertise made into a quality product. So, which option did you chose and why?

KK: I chose the one that had elements of what I had originally sketched. Which was some aspect of the dog holding the rawhide, with the ring attached to the side, what my dog looks like when she’s carrying it.

 

Colored Options Samples

We went with the dog option with a rounded head, and the marketing team picked the green color for the device. You made it green and it naturally fell into a blue background, because the dog was black and white. What was nice is that the logo is round , just like the product  with the title encompassing it.

 

Blue Color Variations

The marketing agency also uses just the symbol without the blue background, sometimes without text and it still looks good.

 

Final Design Logos with/out background

 

RMA:Were you happy with the results?

KK:Oh, absolutely. It was great.

Future Goals

RMA:So this is now about the future.What would be the dream result for this venture?

KK: The dream result is, the Kickstarter campaign is successful. I’m not sure how to define that, I guess that I don’t lose money right?. That would be success no.1!

Success no.2is most of the things get paid for. The mold costs, the manufacturing, all of the fees, etc.

After that, assuming all goes well, it would be to have a product that there for people to buy. Whether it’s a standalone single product website, maybe Tasman’s (sells the rawhides) will take it and run with it. Or who knows, maybe one of the big players will buy it out or license it.

I don’t know, I’m open to anything at this point. I would like to get it out there in consumers hands and in dogs mouths.

RMA:Where can future customers buy this product for their dog?

KK: I will always have the website Everchew.com. So, it will always point to the store that carries it. Be it Amazon, another store or even years later, a company that licenses it. That website will always be a starting point to get it. Initially it will be the Kickstarter campaign that launches August 2^nd.

 

Visit EverChew for more information!

 

 

 

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