Hi folks,

I'm a product designer/ open innovation business owner, and one of my recent products is a small, compact & low-detail silicone/rubber item in a basic geometric shape, such as a pyramid, cube or hemisphere, to be mounted on a circular base which is a separate component. The geometric shape component would essentially be amenable to injection moulding, but I have a question regarding certain capabilities of the process, in terms of generating a multi-colour outcome in the final product.

I fully accept that I'm a complete newbie, and have only basic knowledge of the injection moulding process. If you could please frame any responses in that context (my expression would be blank in the face of technical info!) I would hugely appreciate it.

So here's the problem: I have a cube-shaped component created by an injection moulding process - this cube would need to look and feel like a single piece of silicone or other rubber material, but would have slightly raised detailing on all surfaces. This raised detailing is highlighted in a darker tone of the overall colour in which both detailing & the main body of the component are designed - so raised red detailing, pink cube, for example. My question is whether the injection moulding process can be used to create those raised details in the way described, in a darker tone of the overall 'lighter tone, same colour' material (which would be silicone, or some other fairly similar rubber)..? Additionally, and most importantly, whether this would be feasible in the case of a mass-production process...?

If there was a faint skin of the darker tone material spread out in the space between the raised features, that wouldn't be a problem, as the main body of the cube would be a lighter tone of the same colour - so for example, if it was a cube with red detailing, the main body would appear to be pink - hence a skin of the red material, stretched over white colour silicone for the main body of the cube, would be acceptable as the appearance of the detailing would end up as red on pink, exactly as designed. My instinct tells me that this would be difficult to achieve in the sense of mass production, but I would love to hear that I'm totally wrong!

Would very much appreciate your expert thoughts on the matter.

Thanks in advance,


Simon.
Deus_Ex Design (UK) Ltd