Safety Designed for Protection, Comfort, and Context
Regardless of market, environment, or person, the purpose of any personal protective equipment (PPE) is to protect the user. And we’ve learned that people work effectively when they feel safe. The nuance comes when you introduce different use cases – PPE for the soldier is quite different than PPE for the ICU nurse.
For over 20 years, our team has helped clients develop protective gear across industries, enabling Priority Designs to design and develop products based on the particular needs of the project, while utilizing a depth of knowledge gained from cross-industry experience. This unique experience not only helps speed up time to market, but you can be confident that our team will provide a protective solution from design through production that appropriately meets the needs of the end user, and helps our clients succeed.
Soft Goods Designer, Daniel McKewen
PPE Industry Specialties
Medical Protective Equipment
In a healthcare setting, seconds can mean the difference between life and death. Faced with the choice of spending 30 seconds donning PPE, or rushing into a patient’s room in an emergency, nurses often choose the latter. Priority Designs’ research and design teams have spent countless hours studying healthcare workers across the globe to understand the choices they face. This has not only armed our clients with the data they need to make informed business decisions, it has ultimately resulted in PPE solutions that offer better protection for both healthcare workers and their patients.
Military Personal Protective Equipment
Chem-Bio protective ensembles for head-to-shoulder protection, hand protection, footwear, riot gear and more have been developed to reduce fatigue, decrease don/doff times, improve comfort, and other criteria. These projects have helped our clients pass Man-in-Simulant, Fluorescent Trace, and other forms of testing while successfully integrating with established helmets, respirators, garments, and accessories for military use. Our reputation as a valuable design resource among government contractors continues to grow as we provide deliverables that are innovative, but also tested to work.
Industrial Protective Equipment
Work environments can be hazardous, while experience teaches us that people become more vulnerable as they tire over the duration of a shift. Priority Designs has spent many hours observing and interviewing workers to understand their challenges first hand. This helps us to empathize with their needs and builds respect for their physical safety when designing solutions. Safer employees contribute more effectively to the bottom line while ensuring business continuity for our clients.
Sporting Goods Protective Equipment
Priority Designs has been designing and developing protective equipment for the sporting goods industry for over 20 years across lacrosse, hockey, football, baseball, and soccer. This equipment has covered nearly every part of the body, from helmets to padding to gloves. Over the years, we’ve developed relationships with manufacturers, and conduct ongoing research with materials, fabrics, foams and hardware.
There's no question that working with PD helped maked this product a success. There were many short-cuts we could've taken, but the PD team helped create a bigger vision.
Eric Miller
Director of Product Management, Werner
Priority Designs' overall breadth of experience is an invaluable resource. They've already learned what to do, or not what to do, and we've been thrilled with the relationship.
John Roby
President & CEO, Sirchie
It was clear that Priority Design's in-house team could handle the mechanical, industrial design, and electrical work which was a strength over other firms.
Jodi Lee
Brand Director, Scotts Miracle-Gro Company
Having BIG ideas is one thing, having someone be able to execute them for you is another. Priority Designs not only brought it to life, they made it even bigger.
Adam Beach
Owner, MyGolfSpy
Our collaboration with Priority Designs was a resounding success. Their commitment to excellence throughout the project ensure timely delivery and a product that perfectly aligns with our mission.
Jim Alloway
CEO, Pilot Dogs
PD helped guide us through the re-branding process in a way that really got to the core of our DNA. Their work resonated with both our upper managment and our users alike.
Alan English
Senior Brand Manager, Proto Industrial Distribution at Stanley, Black & Decker
PD's deep understanding of our users and ability to translate findings into actionable items is a powerful combination that helps keep our teams aligned and new programs on track.
Mary Glennon
Global Marketing Insights Manager, Hollister
From concept to design to TMV to testing, PD has been a valuable part of our team and we could not have done this without them. It has been an absolute pleasure working with them.
Kristen Bunch
Senior Engineer, R&D, TIDI Products
The Priority Design's team mastered to understand our niche market and it's end-users quickly, which has led to definition and development of an intuitive UI/UX, which exceeded our expectations.
Steffen Baumann
Former Senior Product Manager, Midmark Corporation
Working together on this project was much more than reviewing sketches and concepts - it was truly a collaboration. That doesn't happen without great people, and PD has them.
Eric Miller
Director of Product Management, Werner
PD has been exceptional to work with. Their in-depth understanding and partnership throughout the project far exceeded our expectations. We couldn't have done this without them.
Jenna Merandi
Medication Safety Officer, Nationwide Children's Hospital
PPE Design
Seamless Integration Under One Roof
With development teams from research through prototyping, Priority Designs helps clients through phases of development with close collaboration between disciplines. Having these services under one roof helps projects move forward quickly, ensures clear handoffs, and eliminates coordination between multiple organizations.
Human Factors & Ergonomics
Our human factors research specialists study and understand the interface between people of different sizes and abilities, and how they use the technology and products around them. These requirements help guide the design process, and are followed-up with usability testing to confirm proficient use of the device.
Apparel & Fit Specialists
The fit of a product significantly impacts the user’s compliance of wear. With an on-staff fashion design specialist, our soft goods team develops patterns and size grading that is optimized to fit the variance of user for each product. Enhanced fit and comfort translate to improved user safety, and iterations of tested prototypes help ensure we arrive at an appropriate solution.
High Fidelity Prototyping
With a 50,000 sq. ft. shop and over 10 dedicated prototype specialists, our team is highly experienced at developing complex prototypes that operate as fully functional PPE systems. Limited production runs of high-fidelity prototypes of our designs have successfully passed government testing procedures for military PPE.
Test Lab Partnerships
Over the years, we’ve developed strong partnerships with test labs for government sponsored programs that submit our PPE designs to all levels of penetration testing. This expedites the PPE design process, and assures our designs provide the utmost protection to the user. If we don’t have the test equipment in-house, we have partners who do.
