UK company Miura Systems wanted to make it easier for small traders—like taxi drivers, cleaners, and market sellers—to accept electronic payments. The challenge? Developing a portable card reader that was both affordable and compact enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
Miura turned to us to bring this idea to life. Unlike many design studios that hand off prototypes to manufacturers and hope for the best, 3fD takes a fully integrated approach. Their design-to-manufacture model means they can design a product and oversee its production in real time, reducing the risk of errors, accelerating timelines, and allowing for clever solutions that traditional processes often miss.
For the M-Series card reader, this approach was crucial. Miura wanted to keep costs down, which meant using slightly bulkier components rather than the latest microelectronics. To achieve the compact form factor, 3fD focused on the casing design. Typically, product casings have walls of uniform thickness to prevent warping during manufacturing. But the M-Series needed mostly thin walls to save space, with thicker sections where screws would secure internal components.
3fD’s team monitored the machines during production, adjusting parameters to ensure the plastic cooled correctly and the final device maintained its sleek profile. The result is a card reader that’s small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, robust enough for everyday use, and manufactured efficiently without unnecessary cost increases.
This project is a perfect example of 3fD’s philosophy: combining innovative product design with hands-on manufacturing oversight to deliver products that are as functional as they are thoughtfully designed. For Miura, it meant creating a payment device that empowers small businesses without compromise.