Do it your way.

Client: Hot Octopuss  
Project: Queen Bee
Services: Consumer insights, Market trends, Product strategy, Concept design, Concept development, Engineering, Manufacture liaison, UX

In 2013, London sex toy company Hot Octopuss shook the market when it launched Pulse, the world’s first ‘Guybrator’. A few years later the company wanted to do the same but this time by reinventing female pleasure in the form of the Queen Bee stimulator.

Having worked on both Pulse and Pocket Pulse and the user research uncovered with those projects, we knew that sexuality is a subject that has to be approached with thoughtfulness and respect. A staggering statistic revealed that 10-20% of women have never experienced an orgasm so our challenge with Queen Bee was to help remedy this situation by encouraging users to explore their sexuality and bodies with the aim of helping them find ‘that spot’. With patented PulsePlate and powerful oscillating technology, Queen bee is a non-insertable toy that offers a premium, fun and versatile user experience. 

Versatile play.

Queen Bee has been designed to be extremely versatile. As the world’s first dual-sided sex toy, it allows users to discover the most stimulating experience. From a gentle massage delivered by slow, soft vibrations on one surface to more powerful oscillations delivered through the PulsePlate technology on the other, users can tailor their experience. This could be a personal experience on their own lying down, sitting up or even standing in the shower, or one shared with a partner.  

What sex looks like.

As keen ambassadors of user-driven research, we start all our projects by gaining consumer insights through understanding what it is users actually want from a product. With Queen Bee, having uncovered user thoughts and behaviours during intimate periods, it helped highlight the need for a sex toy that encourages exploration. 

With these consumer insights together with user views on topics like luxury, sensuality and lust, it gave us a clear direction for the product language. Through sketching we could then explore various forms that both communicate the brand language but also deliver a fully immersive experience for the user.

Form giving. 

We firmly believe in producing hand models as it allows us to explore form and design language though various concepts.  Models are then assessed and validated throughout the process by our design team, the client as well as market specialists and users. This ensures a quick and smooth process based on the right ergonomic and user data. 

Special to the end.

With Queen Bee, we helped our client navigate the manufacturing process. It is here where products can often be stripped of their uniqueness in favour of simpler construction techniques. Working alongside our manufacturing partners we ensured that this was not the case, delivering a product where the initial design intentions remained in tact.