A sleek and simple wall mounted, spinable trading card holder.

For this project I was asked to design a secure trading card mount that can hold all different heights, widths and thickness of trading cards. The big distinction of this holder is it allows the user to securely display their card while also being able to spin the card to see  both sides.

My client came to me with very rough sketches depicting what he wanted (seen in images). We began discussing with aims to get a clear understanding of my clients requirements. He wanted a way to securely hold and mount trading cards on display. He knew he wanted a variety of playing cards to be allowed and that some of these playing cards had information on their backs. I worked with him through his initial sketches and we came up with a clean and simple design together.

Before delving into the design and prototyping process of the full design, I started the engineering process by isolating the main point of concern: the card holding design. The concept was simple: I needed a two part plastic sleeve with a rubber over mold that allowed a range of cards to fit rigidly inside (3-8 mm thick). I designed, manufactured and tested many different concepts until I finally got a grip design that worked. I then continued on with the rest of the design until I ended with a fully injection moldable design.

I worked with this client closely to deliver exactly the functionality he wanted. During this project I continued to learn about the injection molding and assembly process as I worked with manufacturers to quote and sample the overmold for the grippers.

I shipped him the initial test unit and then continued on to produce a small batch of 10 units for initial user testing and feedback. He hopes to continue with this project and injection mold it in the coming year.