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Without a goal, you can't score.
We knew what we wanted: an excellent carabiner designed specifically for your keys. Having this clear idea in mind made all the decisions along the way easier to handle.
Often times, our design process isn't this straightforward. We usually figure out and change what we want as we go.
The Coachwhip Carabiner is a rare case where we knew what we wanted and got it. The result is a design that serves its key carrying purpose down to every little decision.
We love this little guy and hope you do too.
Transcript
First decision that we had to make when we were designing a carabiner specifically for keys was what type of gate to use. This, which is a solid gate, looks very durable and strong, but typically is actually not as the alternate, which is a wire gate. The gate and the spring are the same thing. They're lighter weight and typically more durable and stronger. We are using a wire gate. Once we determined that, there was a second question, which is, do we have a single opening and a single link? The The alternative was having a double gate. It made a lot more sense to have a separate opening for your keys and one opening for the lead for your bag strap. We were like, we know what direction we're heading. We have the constraints. One thing that we hadn't really come to terms with was this guy, the split ring connector. That brought us the third decision. Do we keep the kind of standard carabiner body as pretty chunky and figure out a way to connect keys to it? Or thinning the whole body thin enough that you good slide keys directly on and off of it, and so you wouldn't need a split ring. What we came to was why don't we just do that? Keep it robust and beefy on top and then just spin it to that smaller diameter and best where the keys go on and off. Even for something as simple as a carabiner, there's countless different ways you could construct it and design it and decisions to be made. When you have this clear stated objective, an excellent carabiner for your keys, it makes the decision process so much more straightforward along the way. Which decision, which option was gonna advance us closer to that good.
