Life Fitness
The Process
Discover
Life Fitness approached our design team with a challenge: create a new line of strength training machines that would stand out in a market saturated with “me-too” equipment, without alienating the company’s established customer base.
The goal was to design a signature series of plate-loaded equipment that elevated the gym experience—machines that were both visually iconic and mechanically rock-solid. These products would live in high-traffic commercial fitness centers, so they needed to project trust, strength, and brand unity at first glance.
At the time, the market was flooded with clunky, industrial-looking machines that lacked visual consistency or design-forward thinking. Life Fitness saw an opportunity to make a bold design statement that could define a new standard for the gym floor.
Design
Working closely with Life Fitness' in-house team, our team helped define what “signature” really meant—starting with the physical presence of the machines. The team identified three key areas for innovation:
Form Language – Create a family of equipment with a bold, cohesive visual identity, distinguished by thick tube construction and seamless structural flows.
User Comfort & Experience – Improve ergonomic details like seat comfort and adjustability, grip placement, and visual guidance for correct usage.
Brand Impact – Incorporate unmistakable Life Fitness DNA into every angle, weld, and pad, ensuring every unit stood out and matched others in the series.
This line would eventually span dozens of SKUs, but every machine needed to feel like part of the same family—without looking like slight variations of one another.
Deliver
Our design team led the development of a distinctive, heavy-duty aesthetic that would go on to define the Signature Series. The look was clean, confident, and through it’s stability designed to inspire trust. A key driving force behind our solution was the idea that we considered the sum of all the machines lined up in a room and the impact of the repeated machine aesthetics on the interior design of any club or gym.
Life Fitness
Signature
Series Strength Machines
As health clubs raised the bar on aesthetics and member experience, Life Fitness set out to create a new commercial strength line that matched the elevated expectations. Their goal: build a strength machine that was as inviting as it was intuitive.
We responded with a cohesive design system that made each machine easy to approach, easy to understand, and easy to use. Instructional plaques clearly show proper use and highlight targeted muscle groups, while key touchpoints—handles, knobs, and levers—feature consistent materials, forms, and color accents across the entire product line.
Key Design Features:
A common bold weight stack design was employed reinforcing the family look and enhancing the look of rows and rows of machines with in the club setting.
Unified visual language was achieved through shared detailing—same seat styling, finish treatments, and handle designs across all machines.
Heavy gauge oval tubing was used as a signature structural element across the entire product line. It communicated durability and performance.
An industry first fine-tune mechanism was developed to add additional resistance in between the increments of the weight plates.
Ergonomic enhancements were built into every unit, ensuring that users of all sizes could adjust and use the machines safely and comfortably.
High-impact red upholstery offered both brand distinction and visual contrast, helping users identify the machines quickly in crowded spaces.
Result:
The Life Fitness Signature Series introduced a more intentional, premium feel to commercial fitness equipment—helping Life Fitness push beyond purely functional designs and into an era of brand-driven industrial design. The design line went on to win an IDEA Silver Award, validating its combination of form, function, and visual cohesion.
