XoXo, our lightweight wooden bicycle crate

THIS IS AN ARCHIVE POST FROM 2017.

After Spotty and ZigZag, our first wooden bicycle crates, we wanted to create something much lighter and easier to transport. So together with the Paperspokes team, we started working on a new bicycle crate design.

Zsófi (Zsófia Bakó) designed the new crate, taking inspiration from Spotty. Everyone loved that crate, but there was one problem: it was simply too heavy for many people and their bikes. With XoXo, we kept the same size and the round holes that were already part of the original design, but changed the details to make it lighter. We also made the new crate easy to take apart, so it can be packed flat for transport.

Luckily, we had fewer problems with this product during production. The main thing we had to figure out was the surface treatment. In the end, we simply used linseed oil. We wanted to keep the materials as natural as possible and make the crate easy to recycle, so we didn’t want to use any kind of varnish.

Since the crates are delivered flat-packed, there were quite a few extra things to design. I worked on the assembly instructions (we even made a video to show how to put it together), the packaging, promotional materials and all the other bits and pieces needed for the product.

I think the branding turned out really well, and we also got some great photos of the crate. XoXo has been a big success! Sometimes I wonder if our crowdfunding campaign would have worked out differently if we had started with this product instead. It probably would have had a better chance, but we didn’t want to launch another campaign, so we decided to bring it to the market ourselves instead.

XoXo is available in two colours: natural wood and dark brown. You can also choose from different colours of light-reflective elastic cords, just like with our other two wooden crates.

And the name? Well that one was easy, XoXo just felt right 🙂