EGG Helmets

Product development to the max, that is what I would say in short about the roller coaster experience starting up EGG Helmets. The EGG helmet was developed from scratch. With nothing but a cartoon explaining the idea, my general product development knowledge and loads and loads of hard work, it took us 1.5 year to completely develop the helmet itself, the customisation system, the packaging and point of sale display material. Two years after our first visit to ISPO Münich as a visitor we were nominated as one of the best new brands and won ourselves a booth at the brand new exposition. We were so proud….

EGG all started with Rick Keijzer, founding partner of EGG, making a bike ride with his new born daughter Day. The bike almost fell to the floor and he realised that kids on a bike should wear a helmet. But while realising that, he also realised that the existing helmets on the market are uncomfortable to wear, look dum and he doubted the quality of them as they were not more than a piece of EPS foam with a thin plastic sheet covering it. Rick came up with the idea to develop a customiseable helmet for kids by using ‘skins’ and ‘add-ons’. He assembled the EGG team by asking Charly Heusschen and Norbert Pollemans to develop the brand, and asked me to do the product development. EGG Helmets was born end of 2010.

By developing the helmet from scratch, we were able to really do things differently than all the other brands that make helmets:

The most important invention of EGG Helmets is the customizing system. The skin is a fabric cover that can be digitally printed in full colour. By adding a plastic strip at the edge of the skin that clicks in the rim of the helmet, the skin is attached flawlessly to the helmet, making it difficult to see that it’s actually a loose cover that can be interchanged within 30 sec. The Add-ons are rubber gadgets that can be popped on and off the helmet easily, making it even more fun to wear the helmet by looking like a little devil or a princess. The Add-ons were designed to pop off in case of an impact, making it perfectly safe to use these accessories while playing.

Another important invention is called ‘FAST’. FAST stands for ‘Flexible Adaptive Sandwich Technology’: by clever choice of materials, geometry and assembly, we created a flexible helmet that fits more like a shoe. The helmet is able to adapt to the shape of the wearers head, making the helmet more comfortable and more safe as well: a better fitting helmet is a more safe helmet.

For even better fit we introduced an inflation system in the helmets padding making it possible to inflate the helmet to make the fit smaller and deflate to make it bigger.

An often heard off complaint by kids and parents was the pinch of the buckle in the skin of the chin when closing the buckle. We decided to integrate the buckle in the helmet, making skin pinching impossible and making it easier for kids to buckle up or take off the helmet.

Last but not least; EGG Helmets are made in the Netherlands. By preventing a lot of labour during manufacturing by taking this in account from the start of the design, we were able to get very competitive purchase prices in and around the Netherlands.

EGG Helmets come in a special stackable package for which we received a ‘silver lamp’ from Art Directors Club Netherlands!

EGG is on the market since 2013 and we sell in over 25 countries in more than 400 shops! It was and still is a rollercoaster, but we enjoyed the ride and are proud that EGG has taken its place amongst other big brands.