Project - OBO Carbon Helmet

Recipient of Silver at the Best Design Awards 2025 – consumer products.

OBO, a global leader in field hockey goalkeeping equipment, has long partnered with Idea Developments to design and engineer their headline helmet range.
For the next-generation model, OBO challenged Idea to integrate carbon fibre into the shell structure to improve strength and performance. The brief called for new functional features while retaining the helmet’s signature “passive–aggressive” character — comfortable and organic in fit, yet visually assertive to opponents.
Extensive ball-impact testing was conducted to validate protection levels, with refinements made to meet both the aesthetic and CE safety compliance requirements. Idea carried the design through to production, developing mould tooling, defining quality-control specifications, and supporting the CE approval process to deliver a fully compliant, production-ready helmet for OBO. 

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, 71% of goalkeepers wore OBO gear. By 2028, all OBO-sponsored athletes will compete wearing the new Carbon Helmet — a testament to innovation, collaboration, and the value of engineered design that performs in the real world.

What we Did