Rethinking the high-end cooking range

Creating ranges with commercial performance, bringing the Wolf brand into stronger market visibility

Wolf Appliance - Dual Fuel Range

Project Description:

Our product designers worked closely with Wolf Appliance's internal marketing and engineering teams to develop an award winning product line of Dual Fuel Ranges in 30-inch, 36-inch, 48-inch and 60-inch sizes.

This award-winning major appliance design won both an Excellence in Design Award and a Good Design Award for the new product design. In addition to its design accolades it quickly grew to be Wolf’s number one selling product line and propelling Wolf to steel market share from all of the competition.

Wolf Appliance has been ranked #1 by J.D. Power and Associates in the Range/Cooktop/Oven category. This satisfaction study is based on ease of use; performance and reliability; styling and feel; features; and warranty.

The industrial designers walked a fine line between looking too commercial and too residential. The unique design solution down played the sophisticated electronics and featured the durability of commercial equipment. This design strategy established a level of aesthetic detail refinement that could integrate the appliance into vastly different residential kitchen environments.

The project team developed full-scale foam core mock-ups to maximize user experience. Model testing helped the project team evaluate the user interface design. This ensured that the concealed electronic control panel would pivot open at an appropriate ergonomic viewing angle.

One of the project challenges was to create consumer ranges with commercial performance, bringing the then new Wolf brand name into stronger market visibility. Our client's technological innovations required the integration of new, energy efficient and user-friendly electronic controls into the new product line, without losing their professional brand identity. This was cleverly achieved by hiding them in a pivot out control pod.

Another innovative ergonomic feature is the patented control knob design. This unique co-axial knob design features an LED display to monitor the oven temperature on the knob and a mode selector ring around the outside of the knob. Function graphics are printed on the most visible surface for easy legibility.