SYLVANIA Roadsight Dash Cameras

The Problem

SYLVANIA is #1 Automotive Lighting Brand in the USA. With a 96% market share, SYLVANIA is known for its dominance in lighting. I was brought onto the team to help support and act as a Creative Lead for their new line of in-vehicle electronic products.
These would be new products and the team wanted to visually differentiate them from their lighting products. The audience demographic would skew a bit younger and they wanted the branding to reflect that.

The Solution

We worked with a research agency to launch a series of surveys and consumer interviews to understand this new product category. Competitor and market research also helped the team gain insight.
Working closely with Product Managers and Marketing we created a unique visual design for SYLVANIA first in-car electronic product. Designed to stand out on the shelf and online. The design system was built with the flexibility to extend to other products in the future like tire inflators, rearview cameras, power inverters.

Lessons Learned

This was my first packaging project ever. I had to learn a great deal very quickly to be able to meet deadlines. Fortunately for me, I had a great manager in Rayne DuPaul who helped welcome me into this new world. She was incredibly knowledgeable and shared all her tips and tricks with me.
I also got a very valuable lesson in the importance of working closely with legal. There were several moments throughout this project where a lack of communication with legal led to last-minute changes. Which in turn led to a lot of panic and scrambling on our side.

Video editing

Sizzle Reel

I was handed this project on my very first day at SYLVANIA. My first assignment was to put together a sizzle reel for the largest automotive aftermarket conference in North America; AAPEX. It's a hotbed for retailers to meet with companies and see what's new. Product managers planned on teasing retailers behind closed doors with a presentation and video of what's to come in the future from SYLVANIA.

To see the full video on Vimeo click here

Packaging design

I had to shift my design thinking and process to account for working in a new medium.

This was a big project, and it was handed to me literally on my first day at SYLVANIA back in September of 2019. We are on a very tight timeline to get the packaging done so we could send off the designs to the printers in China. We also still had to sell the product to retailers like AutoZone, Advance Auto Parts, O'Reilly Auto Parts who didn't carry many car electronics. To help sell the products to retailers the sales team asked for some initial packaging designs to bring to meetings.

It was also my first ever packaging design assignment. Working in a physical 3D space was an interesting and really fun experience. I quickly fell in the love with designing the experience that customers would have holding the box in stores and then later opening it at home. It was also really fun printing out my designs and building them at my desk.

Market Research

Not being familiar with dash cameras, I did market research to understand the current landscape and where SYLVANIA could stand out.

The more information you have the more informed your decisions are. This was a new product category for the entire company. As a result, there was limited knowledge internally I could use to base design decisions off. So I took the initiative and went out and did my own research. I visited retail stores to understand how dash cameras were displayed and evaluate competitor packaging.

Consumer Research

Data and research are key drivers to help make decisions in design.

It removes the bias of people working on the project every day and opens the door for valuable feedback from consumers. To give us a better understanding of which direction to take the final packaging (and product) we worked with a research agency to do preference testing on working versions of the design. We used the initial packaging designs to test various variables to see how they performed with consumers.

One of the most important areas of the research was product naming. Testing how a product name would test against simply using "SYLVANIA Dash Camera" on the packaging.

Note: Due to trademark restrictions, I have blurred out the product name we used in testing. Packaging images were photoshopped to represent what the final die-cut window packaging would look like.

Branding

It was clear that using a product name increased people's likelihood to purchase the product.

The data made it pretty clear we needed a product, but we were informed by our legal department that the product name we used in the testing could not be used on the final packaging. It was already trademarked and we needed to quickly scramble and figure out a name for the dash cameras. I presented the team with a variety of options and the team approved the name "Roadsight"

final packaging

A family of SYLVANIA Dash Cameras at retail.

We launched 4 forward dash cameras and a rear camera add-on. The 4 cameras had various performances and features between them. SYLVANIA Roadsight Basic was the entry-level product, while SYLVANIA Roadsight Stealth was our most premium dash camera.

I designed a new modern visual design look and feel for the dash cameras that could be expanded in the future to market other products.

Product Branding

It was important that dash cameras have a completely different look and feel from lighting.

SYLVANIA was known for lighting, but these products needed to visually show a new side of the company. They also needed to compete with brands like Garmin, Nextbase, and Nexar. Brands that had been in the product category for much longer.

I designed a new modern visual design look and feel for the dash cameras. The identity system was designed with the flexibility to work with other electronics the team was planning to release in the near future.

app design

SYLVANIA Connect: Dash Camera App

One of the nice features of the SYLVANIA Roadsight dash cameras was that they had a companion app to give users the ability to view footage and manage footage easily. We worked with developers in India to bring to market a phase 1 version of the app.

To help users download and connect to the app I created a short walkthrough video.