D'Firo Design
About the Client
D’Firo Design focuses on elegant design for healthy outdoor living. Its initial product, the Vizor, is a high end patio umbrella with a sleek, asymmetrical design that provides consistent outdoor shading and protection from the sun’s harmful UV rays.
Objectives
David Lenahan, inventor of the Vizor and an architect by training, was frustrated by patio umbrellas that were focused on fashion but didn’t provide adequate shade from the moving sun. Thus, he engineered the Vizor to intercepts the sun’s rays while using an economy of materials and without employing any ropes, pulleys or pole pins. He hired Galvin Communications to let retailers, distributors and consumers know that the Vizor was truly “something new under the sun”—and to convince them it was worth the $1,000 price tag.
Results
Galvin Communications developed an eye-catching press kit that was distributed to a highly targeted list of home and design editors across the country. The result was the Vizor’s inclusion in the 2006 Sunset/Popular Science “House of Innovation,” a 6,500 square foot home in Danville, California. The exhibit drew approximately 25,000 people over the course of a month and the Vizor was included in the November 2006 issue of Sunset Magazine, which has one of the highest circulations in the country.
The Vizor was featured in home design magazines Chesapeake Home, House & Garden, Woman’s Day, Canadian Homes & Cottages, Orange County Home, and San Diego Magazine. The San Francisco Chronicle, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Cincinnati Enquirer and Newsday also covered it, as did HFN: Home Furnishings News and the Patio & Hearth Products Report.
Finally, Galvin Communications arranged a feature segment for the Vizor on HGTV’s “I Want That!” which aired multiple times. Consumer demand has resulted in the Vizor’s distribution at multiple high end retailers, and D’Firo Design is currently developing additional product lines.