The traditional music's contribution to a people's culture is extremely important. Its distinct sound color springs out from the people but simultaneously emits the people’s attitude to life. The austere but substantial form of the musical instruments, which perform this “duty”, is usually conceived and designed intuitively. As this process is not well-defined, the range of the performance of the instruments is very wide, even among the instruments, made by the same luthier. Thus, the need for standardization of traditional musical instrument making is quite significant. In that context, the lyre of Pontus is redesigned, via contemporary product development methods, since this dissertation was written as part of the MSc in Strategic Product Design at the International Hellenic University. A quite thorough investigation of the users, the context, and the instrument itself has been conducted. With respect to tradition, some improvements are proposed and modeled, with the use of 3D software. The latter is also employed for the examination of the rigidness and the vibrational behavior of the final concept. Prior to that, a material selection methodology, based on specific criteria that concern the attributes of the material for the particular use, proposes the materials, which are more suitable for that task.
