Gadgets & Shopping Ideas for Women
Interview with Pedro Henrique Castro About His Cordless Drill Concept for Women
Published by Sierra Monica P. on June 29, 2012 under Interviews
I have always admired talented people who use existent technologies and their imagination to design innovative product concepts that once turned into real gadgets, would improve our lifestyles. That’s why I decided to create this new blog category, called Interviews, where you can find out who these brilliant people are, what inspires them and how their designs would make our lives easier.
I will start with the interview with Pedro Henrique Castro from Brazil, who designed the cordless drill for women concept submitted on Coroflot.
Pedro contacted me a while ago to ask more details about the 2-gear i-drill. He wanted to create a concept of a similar product, but that could be used even by women to drill holes in concrete walls, and that is a percussion drill for women.
LadiesGadgets: Pedro, please tell us a few things about yourself, like what you do for a living, what you are studying…
Pedro Henrique Castro: Hi Monica!. Firstly, thanks for your support and for publishing my work! I just finished college last month. There were five long and good years I spent studying Industrial Design, learning a lot of new things and meeting new people. Right now I’m designing projects for Points Of Sale.
LadiesGadgets: Did you pick the theme for your college project and, if yes, how did you come up with the idea of creating a cordless drill for women? What would be its uses?
Pedro Henrique Castro: I picked the theme. “Women” is a popular theme right now. Women are getting more and more power, influence, getting leadership positions in the labor market, gaining more money. In our country, the president is a woman. For this, I thought “why not do a tool for women, which traditionally is a product destined for men, but also has market potential?”.
LadiesGadgets: What makes your drill concept stand out?
Pedro Henrique Castro: Well, generally, the drill is a type of product which you have to know a lot about before using it for a task. It’s different than other types of products, like a vacuum cleaner or another type of appliance that makes the operation easy, having icons and symbols that help the user even if he doesn’t know much about it. This doesn’t happen with the drill. You have to know about the diameters, speeds, power, and then mix all these technical data to start the task. If you did this ‘mix’ in a wrong way, you can hurt yourself, even damage the product and the surface you want to drill. Furthermore, usually, the look of the drill is not attractive to women. It’s almost always aggressive, rough, so adding the aggressive look plus the difficulty in operating it, results in something that a lot of woman prefers to pass to someone else!
The concept of ISA, my drill, is to make the operation simpler and, at the same time, pleasant for the eyes of women. Products we feel are beautiful, make our work better, and if there is something wrong in the operation, we have more willingness to try again. Another important issue is to stick to the wall! My drill does this, then you can hang pictures and other things without worrying about power, besides being light and charming.
LadiesGadgets: I’m curious to know if there are other similar products available on the market (drills for women) or, if your design would be a real product, it would be a world’s first. Also, what are your favorite brands of drills?
Pedro Henrique Castro: Well, certainly not the first in the world that is dedicated to women, but perhaps one of the few that has a different approach on how to meet women. In the market, of the few models I found dedicated to women, most of them were just custom pink. It is little. It’s like getting a car, adding a red detail and saying “Ready, we have a car for women!”. Women want attention and most companies have realized this. The tools sector unfortunately did not.
ISA meets the requirements to become a real product and not remain in the concept phase. I researched all types of technical information about size, weight, internal elements, etc. to complete the design. It’s not just an insight or something.
My favorite brand is surely the Black & Decker. They make quality products that are easy to use and they also care about the home environment. They also created good designs for their tools. You can see caprice in their design lines, color composition and proportions. It is a good product, both technically and aesthetically!
LadiesGadgets: Thanks for having us, women, in mind, when working on your college project! I’m sure all of us would love to have one at home and use it to do small repairs or even use our creativity to build nice furniture items as a hobby. Thanks for answering my questions! I’m sure my readers will enjoy reading your answers.
Pedro Henrique Castro: It was my pleasure!
This does not become any less offensive after reading the interview with him. Women who actually use tools for a living (and there are more of us than you think, obviously) do not need a specially designed girly drill to do our jobs. It is not rocket science. Using a drill does not take an overabundance of knowledge to use. The fact that he (and, apparently, you) think that tools are gender-specific makes me shake my head in amazement and dismay. A real woman doing a real job (such as drilling holes in concrete walls, for example) can use an impact drill just like her male co-workers. She doesn’t need a pretty drill just for girls to do it.
Beth, women don’t need girly-looking drills to drill holes in walls, right, but I think we’re not bothered to use one either. You can pick the grey/black drill or the pink/red/etc model from a store. You would probably pick the grey, heavy-looking one, because you consider it to be more powerful, more professional and durable, but women who have no idea that they can drill holes with such a tool in their hands, will pick only the pink/red ones from the selves because they will believe those are easier to use. That was my point – to encourage women to do these jobs by themselves, using something designed specifically for them. A red drill states “I am a sexy drill for women. I am easier to use. Buy me!”. What’s wrong with that? Men run away from pink and red and that is stupid too.
I would pick whatever colour offered the technical specifications I require for the job, whether it was gray, purple, fuschia or black. What matters is the capabilities of the drill, not its exterior. The only factor on the exterior that I take into consideration when buying tools for work is its fit in my hand, not its colour or shape. Many men I work with use red drills…it is the standard colour for the Milwaukee brand.