Allysha Vigneux
The Rosetta Line
Industrial Design
2023
Basswood, rosewood, hard maple
The Rosetta Guitar Line is a line of lightweight guitars designed to accommodate for breasts and small hands, which offers comfort to women, non-binary people, and trans people. Each guitar is inspired by a different female guitarist from a diverse range of musical genres, with the guitar design matching the musician's signature sound. The line's diverse range of aesthetics and sounds offers positive representation of women who play the guitar. This initiative is the result of extensive primary, qualitative, quantitative, secondary, and applied research alongside my own experience as a female guitarist with over a decade of experience. My research findings have indicated that for many women, standard guitars are too heavy, the neck width and fret sizes are too large, and the lack of accommodation for breasts in guitars leads to discomfort. Moreover, despite women constituting half of all beginner guitarists, there is a significant lack of representation of female guitarists and guitarists belonging to marginalized communities.The Rosetta Line offers a comprehensive solution to these issues by incorporating comfort, sound, representation, inclusivity, and more.
“What does a guitar that empowers a woman look like?”