I graduated this year from the Graphic Design program at Red River College Polytechnic in Winnipeg. The two-year program allowed me to learn not only graphic design but also editorial design, web design, product design, and more. These scrubbers were part of a series for a project in the Design Management class, where we learned everything about product creation, from production to packaging, estimation, invoicing, and actual sales.

While the product didn’t have to be something I made, it had to be branded and sold as my own. I initially planned to sell refrigerator magnets made of air-dry clay, but the clay kept cracking and was uncontrollable once it hardened. I realized I should have chosen something I was good at from the start.

I decided to create scrubbers modelled after vegetables and plants, making them life-sized. There were many resources on YouTube that I could easily adapt. Since vegetables and plants come in different shapes and sizes, I thought it wouldn’t be a problem if my scrubbers weren’t identical to each other. I experimented with making them in various sizes and shapes.

I used scrubber yarn sourced from Korea, which seemed unfamiliar to people here. Some even asked if I made the yarn myself because of its shiny texture. Considering that dishwashers are common here, I thought scrubbers might not be essential items. However, some people remarked that my scrubbers looked like Christmas ornaments, which I thought was a great idea to try next time.

For branding, I wanted to make it approachable by using friendly illustrations. I added a tagline, “Hey, this is a scrubby!” with a character illustration trying to eat the scrubbers, thinking it was a vegetable. I attached tags with this illustration and displayed them for sale at the Grad Show market.

Though people probably bought them to support a student, I was thrilled to sell out all my scrubbers. I wished I could have made more, but my wrist hurt too much to produce additional stock.