Protection is more important than pretty

Violin and guitar cases are working tools - the means by which musicians move their precious instruments around. And if you have an instrument worth $50k or more, then you want a case that really protects and works well.

Protection is ever more important today as we face the reality that the very best instruments are a finite resource. This is obviously true of irreplaceable vintage instruments, and luthiers tell me that dwindling wood supplies mean top level modern instruments will become rarer and more expensive.

And accidents happen - as violinist David Garret found when he tripped and fell onto his Stradivarius - which was in a case.

Setting out to make the best cases possible, I had in mind design guru Dieter Rams 10 principles.
Good design should be innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design reduces environmental impact.
Good design is as little design as possible.

The whole project had started with my frustration with existing guitar cases which seemed either poor in protection or very heavy and never aesthetically pleasing. I felt it must be possible to bring together high performance with good looks.

Pursuit of aesthetics can easily compromise function - but I believe we've managed to deliver both. Now that we're into Series 2.0 with a number of refinements to the design, I'm keen to demonstrate just how strong our cases are. This summer I'll be running some new crush and drop tests - we'll shoot these on video for the website.

For the crush test we're going to run a large 4x4 over a violin case - should be fun - I very much like the idea of seeing muckle great tyres running over our pretty case and the violin coming out pristine. Protection is more important than pretty.

Here's a shot I took a few years ago as part of our early testing - we lowered an old Rolls Royce onto one of our cases - the video with a 4x4 will be more telling.