Jasper Sofa 20th Anniversary Edition

The Design Challenge was to keep people interested and maintain connection with a sofa product that has been in the market for 20 years. Keeping the product contemporary without losing the essence or functionality of the beloved range as the product line is critical to the company's sales. This creates a high stakes design environment as the design team had to balance the need for innovation with the risk of alienating their customers. It was essential to retain the signature comfort and flexibility that customers love while also introducing contemporary updates that would meet the evolving needs of modern living.

Incorporating contemporary curves to the sofa forms and shelves as well as ambient touch operated lighting to the underside of the shelves. This allows the range to have a 70s on trend feel to the product, without compromising on any of the key features. It is also interchangeable with all pre-existing Jasper sofa units sold over the last 20 years. Many different solutions were explored to come back to this simple solution as retaining the essence of what makes a Jasper was essential. It is also a fairly timeless approach to a current trend.

From a commercial perspective, the updates to the Jasper for the 20th anniversary offer a continued versatile and adaptable piece of furniture that can meet the changing needs of consumers, leading to increased customer satisfaction. From an environmental perspective, it's a sustainable and modular design, coupled with its replaceable parts, removable and upgradeable covers, reduces waste and promotes a circular economy. The fact that this product has been very commercially successful for 20 years with only incremental updates is a testament to this sustainability.

Creating the circular form to the rear of the sofa particularly, required building on the 45 years of experience that King has in manufacturing modular sofa products. The removable backrest together with removable covers makes it complex to achieve a beautiful join in this area. By using the continual improvement techniques over the last 45 years, an area which might be problematic for other manufacturers is second nature for King Living. The concept of the touch light built into the underside of the Timber shelf top was one of those "aha moments" of design. Utilising our existing technologies and combining previous design innovations from our products we were able to keep the light invisible while switched off, but easy to operate with a simple touch along any point down the line of the shelves. This ensures that the light is easy to access wherever it might be installed on the sofa (using our patented easy to use spigot system). The light is available together in the same component as the wireless phone charging component, meaning that the power cable only needs to be fed through the shelf side once for multiple functions and is easily hidden between the sofas components.