Zagar Innovations

In 2010 my dad wanted music on his bike rides. He rode constantly and it kept him going, but there was no good way to carry a player on a bicycle. He called his brother in California, a machinist, and between them they had a prototype.

They called it the EDM, the Electronic Device Mount: a billet aluminum clamp for handlebars that held a phone, an MP3 player or a small camera. My uncle machined it. My parents sold it. I did the rest of what a customer would see: the logo, the packaging, the newspaper ad, and the website they sold it from.

Creating the brand

The logo came before the product did. I wanted the mark to read as forward motion. I worked it out on the artboard, trial and error until it held.

Business cards on Avery sheets, set in two versions, a different pair of initials on each. My parents handed them out at events and shipped one with every order, so a customer always had someone to contact.

This flyer ran as a full-color, quarter page ad inserted into the local newspaper.

The product development process begins

While the branding came together, my dad and my uncle drew the mount. The first prototype came back soon after, ready to test fit.

Original drawings for the EDM
(Electronic Device Mount)

Prototype for test fitting [LEFT]

First production run in green [BELOW]

The final product in all colors

Designing the packaging

Every EDM shipped with the mount, a rubber gasket for a tight fit, instructions and a small adjustment tool, in a stitched leather case whose belt clip slid over the mount on your handlebars.

The mount came in more than one size and type, and I did not want a print run for each. I put case size and EDM type fields at the top of the card, to be marked per unit, so one card covered the line. A uses panel answered whether it would fit your device. An includes panel answered what was in the box. Those are the questions someone asks holding it in a store.

The case was pre-installed on a 5 millimeter cardboard card, stamped with rounded corners and a cutout for a shelf hook. The photograph behind it is my dad’s own handlebar on a path he rode. I blurred the trail by hand so the mount would read as foreground.

Creating the website

People needed to order on the go, so I kept the storefront small and fast. Behind it I built a light content management system, an admin area my parents signed in to so they could change a price or check on a sale themselves. Payments went to their PayPal account, which transferred its balance automatically every week.

Trade shows and events

My parents took it on the road. Bike events around the area first, then around the country, with their bikes, and as much product and marketing material as fit in the van. They sold several hundred units, online and in person, before retiring from the sales floor, and from biking not long after.

The packaging is the piece I would keep. One card, printed once, covering every size and type of mount, with my dad’s handlebar behind all of it.