Kettle Project : The Market Teardown History Aesthetics Process Concepts Costing Induction
What am I doing?
In my initial post, I stated that my aim was:
"... not to 'reinvent' the kettle by coming up with a world of delightful future-spec, premium price innovations, but to get close to the realities of the market as it is, and to see if or how we can use the domain of the 'industrial designer' to make small, deliverable changes to a very cheap machine."
However, shoot for the moon and all that, so I won't be limiting myself in these initial stages, for the design generation process, my aim will be to:
"Design a better way to heat water for hot drinks, specifically, Tea"
But in order to deliver a product there needs to be some kind of planning and process.
The design process
There are infinite ways of committing to a product design process, the goal of which is to combine the right and left sides of the brain; to generate creative ideas, and then deliver them logically. One of the most basic approaches is what is seen as the 'over the wall' approach, in which designers generate imaginative concepts which are then specified, troubleshot and delivered by engineers.
An industry which vividly displays the symptoms of this is car design, where we see inspiring, exciting and ultimately impossible concepts at car design shows:
Which are then delivered with logical but boring and formulaic solutions further down the line.
This is quite a disappointing, and ultimately, engineering based process. However, it is simple and manageable, and therefore the most applicable in large, sprawling multi-national companies; especially those in markets with little hope of real innovation.
A more integrated, collaborative and productive idea of a design process would be a more 'iterative' one:
Here, we imagine more proactive back-and-forth between the 'brainy' and the 'creative' heads in the company. 'Ideas' are generated from all areas, and multiple levels of designers: R&D, Industrial, and Engineering pass concepts around until the final product is spat out. This is how I imagine more design-focused teams such as Apple and Dyson approach matters, although the process requires more organisational disorganisation; leading to the developmental stagnation that we can expect from these companies. It therefore requires a considered effort from those above to manage the process first-hand.
The problem we have is that we are dealing with a mess of different factors:
- Research informs the Ideas and the Industrial Design
- The company's philosophy affects the Industrial Design, and the types of Idea that are considered
- The process of Industrial Design drawing and random making can generate new ideas itself
- The Concept itself affects the Industrial Design's emphasis
In addition to this, you can't control what ideas you ultimately come up with; if your ideas are crap, then do you push on? And what if your ideas are great, but are too complicated to deliver in the time allotted?
A design process that mirrors these complications looks something like this:
Here, ideas, Industrial Design and interim concepts are spun around, growing as a vague and messy blob until a satisfactory grain is generated. This can then be detailed.
The problem with this messy but realistic process is that it is impossible to model organisationally, and difficult to coordinate for large, complex, important projects. It is also hard to present to tutors or managers as a simple 'story' that can be explained and sold in presentation. It therefore can only be the preserve of individuals with no time constraints, or in IDEO style 'hot teams' which are small in size and limited in their risk.
A small team with no constraints, nor any risk, is what I am, so I attempt to go through and explain process three in the next stages of this Kettle Blog Project.
Beginning the design process
Okay, so the first step is not to think at all, and fire out 10 pages of rubbish just to get in the swing of things.
After that, a slightly more considered approach, using mind-maps and Papanek's paper computers to generate direct ideas and solutions.
Reverting back to mindless scribbles whenever I run dry.
When I ultimately ran dry, I then took a 'Rand week' - Paul Rand suggested that we should take a week off projects - which is evidenced by the lack of a blog post last week, where I avoided kettle design at all costs. This is an attempt to be fresh and logical when It comes to the more careful later stages of the design process.
I then combed through the mountain of random work I had produced, looking to find rough gems in the sand. The result is about 5 new Ideas which are passible in some way.
Idea 1 focuses on the major ecological issue, that kettles use a lot of power. At generally 3kW, they are one of the most powerful appliances in the home. Given that the energy usage and amount of water boiled are linearly related, a very important consideration is that users should only boil as much as they need. This can be communicated in many ways, but a strong 'nudge' towards measuring a single cup using the overall form is a simple but likely effective design consideration.
Subscription services and new, speciality produce delivery systems are two very 'current' 'trends', as evidenced by the rise of Spotify, Netflix, shaving clubs and Nespresso. Idea 2 is a cynical attempt to jump on this bandwagon, using current technologies to deliver speciality teas and assist the user in their proper brewing via 'smart' teabags and digital controllers. A rather tongue-in-cheek suggestion, but one worth considering in the meantime before we get too serious. QWER-TY? 😅
Idea 3 takes inspiration from the Bialetti espresso maker, and inexpensive drip coffee machines, using a lower element to spurt water into an upper reservoir. The idea is that people can, instead of leaving a kettle to boil the full amount, start then stop the machine after the required quantity is boiled, leaving cold water in the bottom ready for next time. Or they can fill cups one-by-one as the kettle continues to boil the full amount. Complicated, probably needlessly so, but an interesting idea that can be played with some more going forward.
Induction hobs have proven themselves as performers as far as boiling water is concerned, my Neff hob at home will testify to that, but stove-top kettles have fallen by in the UK, seen as old fashioned. In addition, they require a whistle as they are not automatically turned off, and pose a risk if left to boil dry idly. In response, Idea 4 retains the kettle-and-base model popular at the moment, but this time, the base is a standalone induction hob unit, and the top is a slightly modified stove-top kettle. This relies a lot less on mechanical parts, either unit can be replaced if broken, and also could be used as a separate hob if needed for food ect. It does require some slightly more modern and perhaps more expensive connectivity between base and kettle.
Idea 5 is perhaps a bit of a cop-out, but many people now find themselves with surfaces cluttered by multiple hot-drinks machines.
The problem is, Nespresso machines are designed to extract coffee, which is done at around 90 degrees celsius; not ideal for a perfect cup of black tea. A simple solution would be a button on said machine which would fast-track boiling water straight into the cup. It would be much simpler to plonk a cup and teabag under the machine, and come back in two minutes to a well-brewed tea.
That's the best of my ideas up to now, so the next step is to put them through another filter of design process and see what comes at the end.
Industrial Design Philosophy
In the absence of clear guidance from God about what exactly defines 'Good Design', although Jesus got very close, many have settled on having a clear 'design philosophy'. Another approach is to come up with the completed idea first and then market it's benefits through it's visual appearance, but I often find these results nauseous and narrow-minded. In the absence of any brief or overlooking manager, Here's a design philosophy I made earlier:
ESTHETACORP is an online mood-board curated by myself over the last 6 months. Various parts Richard Sapper, Marc Rothko, Dieter Rams and LeCorbusier it is a vicious and emotional alter-ego to calm and considerate white modernism, favouring late-modern industrial details, a large serving of the colour red and helvetica; with themes of motivation, politics, high-tech and punk. I will be attempting to channel my Industrial Design, at least in this project, through this lens.
The next stage of the project then, is to expand and cross-pollinate the various ideas with slightly different themes and ideas. In addition to the 5 aforementioned ideas, I will introduce back into the fray 3 concepts, serving as 'control' groups in this experiment.
Control 1 is based exactly on my little £5 Wilko kettle.
Control 2 is based on ubiquitous middle-market offerings with a 360 base.
And Control 3 sits at the top of the market, with lots of fancy options at my disposal.
I will take all 8 of these concepts, and cross them with 6 themes taken from ESTHETACORP, namely:
- Sharpness
- Reluctant acceptance of manufacturing processes
- Translucency
- Use Expression & Tactility
- Formal Minimalism
- Helvetica & Monochrome
This will generate 8 x 6 = 48 individual ideas, each which will pull the original idea in a different, and hopefully better, direction.
... the results of which will come next week. Until then ...
***
This is a very interesting way of doing a project, I am uploading as I work. A normal design project is merely presented at the end, which opens the project up to a lot of 'backwork' - work done to beef up the portfolio towards the end of the project - by doing this, I am opening myself up to a potentially large failure, but it keeps it exiting as I have to push though with every box ticked. Hopefully no-one steals my ideas before I can patent them!
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