Awa. Designing Hand Paddles

This design project arose from identifying a gap for hand paddles in the sporting equipment market.

From personal experience, I knew that existing hand paddle designs were difficult to put on, uncomfortable and not particularly stylish. My goal was to design something different: comfortable, adaptive functional and attractive. My proposal was Awa, a product integrated both to the user and the aquatic environment.

The target audience were young people and adults who swim regularly and who identify with two relevant concepts: effectiveness and style. Awa customers follow an active lifestyle and want to project the best image of themselves at all times. Sport is an integral part of their lives and their clothes reflect that.

An important part of the project involved researching and developing the form of an effective hand paddle. This required research into concepts such as hand ergonomics, as well as prototyping designs and assessing and testing them in the water to select the best model.