Skinny Blonde is an Australian beer that features some rather… unique packaging.
On each bottle, there is a picture of a blonde babe in a red bikini, and when the bottle heats up, the bikinis come off and you’re left holding a bottle with a topless hottie on it.
The website is also rather… unique, since you can preview each skinny blonde before buying the actual bottle. There’s also a staring competition, though I’m guessing you can figure out how that will end.
TCHO is a very interesting chocolate company. Founded by a Space Shuttle technologist turned chocolate maker and a grizzled industry veteran who set up chocolate factories for 40 years from Costa Rica to Germany, TCHO takes a decidedly tech approach to the chocolate making process.
As such, they released a ‘beta’ version of their chocolate over a year ago, and have encouraged their customers to help develop the products through limited run, “beta editions” of the chocolate ever since.
The enthusiastic ‘beta testers’ quickly moved their way through 1026 iterations of the chocolate, and after a solid year of very hard work, “Chocolatey”, “Fruity”, “Nutty” and “Citrus” flavors have all arrived and are ready for a “gold master” release, including new packaging and a finalized formula.
TCHO’s chocolate formula might have just graduated out of beta, but their factory certainly has not, as it’s been designed to produce more than 4,000 metric tons of chocolate per year, which makes them one of only a dozen other major chocolate manufacturers in the US.
In addition, TCHO has a social mission as well, and intends to move beyond just Fair Trade, and actually help farmers by transferring knowledge of how to grow and ferment better beans so that they can escape commodity production and become premium producers.
“In the end, there’s only one way to truly understand this story. Just put it in your mouth.”
Amazon is fighting back against “wrap rage”, or “the frustration we humans feel when trying to free a product from a nearly impenetrable package”, by releasing a line of products that arrive in “Frustration-Free Packaging”.
By working with manufacturers to deliver products in smaller, easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard boxes with less packaging material (and no frustrating plastic clamshells or wire ties) Amazon hopes to eliminate this “wrap rage” over the course of the multi-year initiative.
As an occasional victim of wrap rage due to busted knuckles and excessive garbage, I definitely hope they reach their goal, and since they’ve stated that they want to offer their entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging in a few years, it definitely seems like they’re heading in the right direction.
It’s no secret that Apple has mastered the art of design, and with every iteration of their product line, they continue to wow with small and often subtle changes that contribute to an overall feeling of amazement when interacting with their computers. Each and every piece and part has its own place in the end result, and everything feels like it should be there, rather than needed to be there.
With the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro, Apple “Redesigned. Reengineered. Re-everythinged.” their way into one of the most stunning laptops ever built thanks to a new unibody construction that begins life as a single piece of aluminum, and ends as a computer that has been machined down to the micron, thus reducing size, weight, complexity, and opportunity for failure.
Even things like the thickness of the display don’t escape the watchful eye of Apple’s designers, as they opted to use LED backlight technology across their entire notebook line, rather than the CCFLs that are standard for the industry. In addition to the fact that they take less space to create the same amount of light, LEDs reach maximum brightness instantly, unlike CCFLs, which take time to warm up.
It’s also no secret that Steve Jobs has a thing for buttons, and specifically the removal of as many buttons as possible, so for the latest version of Apple’s trackpad, they’ve removed the buttons entirely and replaced them with a trackpad that is itself the button. Users can click anywhere on the trackpad and it will register as a click, allowing for new ways of interacting with the computer through Multi-Touch gestures that had never before been possible.
Think no part is too small to escape revision? According to Apple, designers worked on hundreds of versions of the thumbscoop (the indentation that allows you to open the display) before they got it right.
If the scoop is too deep, you put too much pressure on the display to open it. If it’s too shallow, you struggle to open the display. It may seem incidental, but if the thumbscoop is well designed, it makes the difference between a bad experience and a good one.
How important was it for Apple to get the thumbscoop right? They examined their options under an electron microscope until they were happy that they had gotten it just right.
The sleep indicator light?
During the CNC process, a machine first thins out the aluminum. Then a laser drill creates small perforations for the LED light to shine through. These holes are so tiny that the aluminum appears seamless when the light is off.
A light when you need it and nothing when you don’t?
That’s what I call attention to detail.
And don’t think that just because Apple is obsessed with perfection that they’re willing to let the environment take a hit as a result of their designs.
In addition to being brighter and thinner, LED backlighting is also mercury and arsenic free, and uses 30 percent less power than a CCFL display. The circuit board? Now polyvinyl chloride (PVC), brominated flame retardant (BFRs), bromine and chlorine free.
Even the packaging has been optimized, with a reduction of 37 percent when compared to previous generations. Fewer trees used for boxes and less fuel used for transportation means a healthier environment, and when all is said and done and it’s time to upgrade to the latest and greatest, almost every part of the new MacBook line can be recycled.
Is it perfection?
Probably not, since I’m sure they’ll find ways to improve their products and their processes in the future, but until then, Apple’s laptop line is a design force to be reckoned with.
Here’s an interesting way to advertise a detergent: Wrap it in a t-shirt that the postal service will inevitably ruin, and then have the recipient use the product to remove the stains from the shirt packaging.
Brilliant!
[Frederik Samuel]
[Via: NOTCOT]
The Sorapot by Joey Roth has taken the design world by storm by combining an architectural shape and simple functionality into a teapot that “brings tea’s quiet beauty into sharp focus.
It’s made from 304 stainless steel, borosilicate glass (Pyrex), and food-grade silicone for long lasting good looks, and “articulates the ritual of tea making in [...]
