Step-In Dog Harness with a Proprietary Twist-Lock Closure
A dial-based closure adapted from BOA-style cable tensioners to pet products — mechanism, moulded parts and manufacture-ready drawings for a brand's first product.
A design-led pet brand preparing to launch needed its first product engineered properly: a step-in harness closed by a proprietary twist-lock dial, plus a matching leash.
The problem
The dial is the product. Everything else follows from whether it works:
- It has to tension and hold against a pulling animal, then release instantly when the owner wants it off.
- It cannot be a cable tensioner borrowed from a boot. Adapting the principle for a pet means different loads, different hygiene, and a user operating it one-handed on a moving target.
- The harness is soft goods; the mechanism is moulded plastic. The two have to be joined so the load path passes through webbing and stitching, not through a plastic boss.
- The founder also needed renderings and functional animation for investors, not just files for a factory.
The approach
- Mechanism first, garment second. The closure was designed as a device with its own tolerances and duty, then integrated into the harness architecture.
- Load into textile, not into plastic. Anchor points carry force through reinforced webbing junctions; the moulded parts locate and lock rather than taking tension directly.
- Designed for the DFM conversation. The client expected a manufacturer to come back with revision requests, so parts were built parametrically to absorb moulder feedback without a restart.
- One model, two outputs. The same assembly produced the engineering drawings and the presentation renders, so what investors saw was the product that would actually be made.
The result
A manufacture-ready design for the harness and its closure across four iterations, with injection-moulding-ready parts, technical drawings and render assets.
Where this applies
Any product whose selling point is one custom mechanism. Get that part right — loads, tolerances, one-handed operation — and the rest of the product is detailing.
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