Now that we have entered yet another wave of the pandemic, we continue to require creative design solutions to adapt how we live and work. In this series, DIAC collects some of the recent design success stories to share with you.
Resources Designed to Support Safe Schools
Copernicus is an Ontario-based manufacturer of learning tools and furniture for schools. Since it was founded in 1989, Copernicus has been making products that improve the classroom experience for teachers and for their students. The Copernicus product catalogue contains a wide range of popular products including storage systems, teaching easels, technology stands, equipment for outdoor learning and other classroom resources.
But in 2020 when schools closed because of the pandemic, the management team at Copernicus realized that customers in their target markets would shift their focus to concentrate on plans for a safe reopening, including sanitization and teaching in alternative spaces like the outdoors.The best way to help them would be to offer products designed and sourced to meet this need and to launch these products as quickly as possible.
Copernicus has always been a design-led company. Their President is an industrial designer and they employ 5 designers on the staff, which is very unusual for an Ontario manufacturer. The design team helps the company to use design research methods to observe how teachers and students are using their products, and learn what they need now and may need in the future.Through these methods the design team can develop more products uniquely adapted to the needs of school programs and keep ahead of the competition by developing products they don’t have.
As the pandemic threatened many SMEs, Copernicus was able to organize a series of brainstorming sessions to develop ideas for new products to support a safe reopening of the schools. The designers and production team quickly determined what could be made locally and what products or parts would have to be sourced abroad. Copernicus was able to introduce the first of these products in the summer of 2020, just three months after the initial lockdown.
The products, all customized for elementary school classrooms, include sanitizing products and a stand for dispensing hand sanitizer gel with features made for children such as large drip trays and lock-out safety features; space dividers to facilitate social distancing in the classroom, outdoor teaching tools and a strainer tub for washing Lego. The most popular item has been a portable sink that can be used outdoors and does not require electricity as many competitor products do. As the schools became more concerned with indoor air quality, Copernicus also introduced a HEPA Air Purifier.
“The pandemic has taught us the importance of a quick response to a customer crisis, and proven the benefits of being flexible and open to change. Being a design-led company really helps, “ says Kaylyn Belcourt, industrial designer and President, Copernicus Educational Products.
