Prince Tennis Ball Dispenser

When Prince^® needed to find a better way of merchandising their tennis balls they instructed Rick Gaskell of Rage Design to create a small but efficient point of sale unit capable of holding the cans that their latest tennis balls were sold in. Rick contacted Evans Graphics and following several design meetings, an idea was formed to bring to life a new style of dispenser which fulfilled their needs.

Using wire and sheet steel, the dispenser was fashioned to hold some 12 cans of tennis balls at a time, but would still be easy to re-fill once the unit had begun to dispense the cans. The design called for some innovative thinking in terms of how to cope with two sizes of can that needed to be handled, as well as the clever use of advertising space. The two sizes of can were initially thought to be best handled by an adjustable frame which would allow for the rack unit to be expanded or closed down according to the size of can being stocked, however, this proved to be too costly for the purpose, and so a single size frame was decided upon, which could handle two lengths of canister.

A pair of folded channels was then added to the front face of the frame, helping to hold a 400gms litho printed display card in situ, this had the added advantage of allowing the advertising message to be changed when necessary, thus ensuring that the POS unit did not date too quickly. The Prince^® wordmark was also screen printed down both sides using a two pack epoxy ink, suited for the type of polyester powder coat finish. This involved rotating the formed wire unit through 180° whilst wet to ensure that the legend was accurately registered on both sides.

The wire and sheet metal assembly's were formed using jigs which ensured that the wires were all bent consistently, and then spot welded on an automatic welding table to keep the speed of manufacturing in line with the short leadtime available. The hardwearing silver finish coat was applied by an automated powder coating line, which kept the colour and consistency first class throughout the painting process.

From initial prototype work to final production, the entire project took some nine weeks, and in all a total of 1000 units were manufactured and completed. Logistics were potentially a problem, but with proper planning and clever use of available space, everything went smoothly to plan, and the entire consignment was boxed and palletised before being shipped across to Holland for final distribution to the European retail market place.