Beantown Paintball

Beantown Paintball was started from a combination of two passions of mine. First being paintball. I’ve been playing since the age of 10 and its always been my sport to play. I have been fortunate enough to combine this with another passion of mine, 3D printing. 3D printing has been an interest of mine since consumer grade printers came to market years ago. In 2014 though, I was able to buy my own 3D printer and that was the start of Beantown Paintball.

Shortly after acquiring the 3D printer I went out on a weekend to go play paintball. I quickly realized there are so many opportunities for improvement in the paintball industry. Many of these improvements are small, simple products that could easily be produced with a 3D printer. So once I got home I instantly got started on my first product. When starting out my only goal was to solve a personal issue. But I quickly saw the market opportunity and decided to try and bring these products to market.

What is Paintball?

Speedball and Woodsball

Speedball and Woodsball are the two common types of paintball people play. Speedball is generally a bit more organized with short rounds with two opposing teams. It is played on a field usually divided up with airbags for cover. Woodsball is usually played in the woods with larger teams and longer match times. Some of the best places to play woodsball create castles and other themes for players.

Pump Markers and Stock Class

In paintball there are several different types of guns, or as they are referred to within the sport, paintball markers. Pump markers operate by having to pump a handle on the front to load each paintball. People use these markers for the increased accuracy and increased challenge.

A more challenging way of playing is stock class paintball. This is a style of play where players purposely limit their markers to increase the challenge. With stock class markers, players use gravity fed 10-round tubes to hold paintballs and load the marker. After shooting the 10 rounds players have to replace it with another 10 round tube.

Products

Pump Handles

The first product to be designed for Beantown Paintball was a custom pump handle for the Empire Sniper paintball marker. Since its launch Beantown Paintball has grown to sell handles for over 5 different markers and have 3 different style handles. To see more on the design and development of the pump handles you can go to its own portfolio posting or by clicking here.

Revolverloader

The second product, the Revolverloader was an evolution to an existing design that Beantown Paintball gained the rights to develop further and sell. I took the existing design and used my experience in product design and rapid prototyping to improve manufacturing and user experience. To see more on the design and development of the Revolverloader you can go to its own portfolio posting or by click here.

Packaging

Packing design is an important aspect of the brand language. I wanted to create a clean and cost effective packaging solution for all of the products offered. For pump handles I went with a bag and custom topper to be hung on display. With the Revolverloader I am using custom shipping boxes and a labels to make shipping easier and reduce waste.

Marketing

The paintball community is a close-knit group so word of mouth and social media helped Beantown Paintball grow quickly. Using paintball forums and Facebook was all I needed to get Beantown Paintball off the ground. Once players started bringing our products to the field and other players saw them things continued to take off.

Web Design

The website is the main marketplace for Beantown Paintball and my goal was to keep it clean and minimal.

Designing a website around e-commerce comes with its own challenges. The current paintball market is saturated with vibrant branding, therefore creating a simplistic line-art of the products from their Solidworks files helped in stream lining the look and feel of the website. I didn’t want Beantown Paintball to blend into the sea of colors on a shelf. Color is only used on the product photos, while the main website has a theme of neutral black and white, which helps bring focus on the products.

Please visit www.beantownpaintball.com to see more of the website and products.