Using a weed trimmer w/brush blade, a piece of the blade broke off ricocheting off a steel retaining wall sending the fragment into and through my right eye. 1st & 2nd surgeries and treatment to repair extensive damage to retina, cornea, and lense. Generic eye patches combined with swelling and bruising created much discomfort.

After using several eye patches I decided to begin designing my own prototype. Endured a 3rd surgery just prior to my first prototype eye patch build weighing over 17 grams.

Several prototypes later concluded with dropping the weight to 8 grams and reconfiguring the contours so the patch could be worn comfortably under reading glasses and sunglasses.

COVID lockdowns delayed my eye appointments by 3-½ months. Thankfully, by this point, I was satisfied with the overall eye patch I had designed and wore it every day.

4th & 5th surgeries, including a cornea transplant and with a lense. I showed my doctors the patch. They liked the design and were impressed with the protective hard plastic construction.

After continued R & D work, I began experimenting with vents in the design and the positioning there of. After 4 prototypes I settled on 18 vertical vent holes to enable breathing, relieving moisture. The weight could be reduced by using a different material and I acquired a much more expensive and advanced machine for printing.

Over several doctor visits, I met many other people with eye injuries. It was the culmination of that and this design process that inspired me to research developing a site and offer a line of eye patches for those like myself.

With the new equipment I was able to trim the excess from the original design, reduce the amount of vents from 18 to 12, and drop the overall eye patch weight.

Looking back from day 1, the main theme behind the creative process was my comfort. I realized my design was larger in the beginning, much to do with the swelling from the initial injury. As the healing process continued, the sizes of my designs grew smaller for comfort. The hard plastic material gave peace of mind in terms of protection, again, comfort. I also realized everyone’s eye sockets, and eyes for that matter, are different sizes. I now offer 2 sizes of eye patches Large and Regular, both vented and unvented. (Measurements are viewable on the product pages). I’ve built them in a handful of colors, but personally found black to be the most practical due to light.