Creation of a standard range bottle for Craft Spirits by exploring the concept of purity and its relationship to glass and craft.
TEAM
Steffi Lenz, Lars Lange, Nils Tiemann (Mentor)
MY ROLE
Designer, Researcher
There is a difference between designing a product from scratch and designing it through and with a material like glass. It is because fabrication methods and material limitations are the basis of creative processes. As part of a collaboration with Owen Illenois Glass Company, I created a standard range of craft bottles. They could be used for all kinds of spirits. An additional guideline was to define the bottle in accordance with my own definition of what craft is. Through this work, I explored the concept of purity and its connection to craft and glass. I ultimately designed three bottles focused on aspects and perspectives associated with the given 'craft' theme.
Creation of a standard range bottle for Craft Spirits by exploring the concept of purity and its relationship to glass and craft.
Team:
✹
Steffi Lenz, Lars Lange, Nils Tiemann (Mentor)
My Role:
✹
Designer, Researcher
Duration:
✹
5 months
Synopsis
There is a difference between designing a product from scratch and designing it through and with a material like glass. It is because fabrication methods and material limitations are the basis of creative processes. As part of a collaboration with Owen Illenois Glass Company, I created a standard range of craft bottles. They could be used for all kinds of spirits. An additional guideline was to define the bottle in accordance with my own definition of what craft is. Through this work, I explored the concept of purity and its connection to craft and glass. I ultimately designed three bottles focused on aspects and perspectives associated with the given 'craft' theme.
Definitions of the term craft already abound. In spite of the fact that some of these definitions are accurate, they do not seem to capture and define the essence of craft. As a result, every individual must define craft for themselves. The result is an oversaturation of the market with various definitions of craft, which confuses producers and consumers alike. For me it is the act of creation that defines craft at its core. As humans, we possess it in a unique and specific form that makes it pure in itself.
My goal was to emphasize that purity. For this reason, I created a mindmap based on existing definitions of craft and assimilated their main elements. Based on this method, four crucial stylistic elements of craft can be identified. I called these aspects the Pillars of Purity: Eternity, Rawness, Uniqueness, and Process. The bottles i wanted to create all revolve around the purityof craft, the purity of creation.
After this realization, I streamlined my ideas into different concepts. A first step in the direction of a final design was observing each Pillar individually to extract what elements in a bottle make it appear, for example, eternal. As I wanted each bottle to be unique at the end of my production phase, I incorporated this aspect into each route.
Streamlining the available routes and defining their core elements
In order to shape my creative vision, I create stepping stones: temporary designs reflecting my first impressions. They are meant to help me find a style I can develop further. From sketching to CAD modeling to 3D printing, I experimented with different techniques, creating three preliminarily bottle concepts.
03
Analysis
Stepping Stones and Glass Bottles (Evaluation)
Following my ideation, I evaluated the bottle concepts with feedback from both my professors at Folkwang University and the supervisors at OI. I focused mainly on getting an evaluation of the form of the concepts. Moreover, I spent two days gathering user data from Essen-Duisburg University's campus to create a narrative for each bottle. Throughout all conversations, I asked them to describe an object, expressing Rawness, Eternity, or Process. I created word clouds based on their feedback. The keywords were synthesized into fictional brands to continue the bottles' formalistic language. After this evaluation i finalized the bottle concepts and moved on to realization.
04
Analysis
The Pure Series (Designtransfer)
The collection of the three final bottles was called ‘Pure’. By focusing all on a different aspect of craft the series offers a large varity both in appearance as well as personality of the bottles. The individual narratives in form of decals, embossing and labeling were designed as an extension of the bottles themselfes, which is why i first present the bottles in their purest forms before showing the narratives for each.
Qain - A bottle that that tells a story of the past while looking into the future.
Eternity in craft is the feeling of tradition and knowledge that goes into the final product, and with it the story that the bottle and its content inherit. Craft bottles that focus on eternity deal with that knowledge of the past and how it affects the future of a brand and a spirit.\
The liquor for which ‘Quain’ was primarly designed for is rum. The labeling concept ‘Sankofa’ keeps this in mind while focusing on accentuating the movements and curves of the original bottle, thereby elevating already existing features. The cork is cone shaped, faciliting a soundless removal, while the wax print gives the bottle a manufactured, personal touch. The ficitonal brand ‘Sankofa’ paints a critical picture of rum consumption and its history, and is thought for more sophisticated, concious drinkers, that look into the past to reflect on the future, being inspired by the sankofa bird and its message.
Dagda - A bottle with a simple, tactivle appeal, that wants to be explored by hand.
The rawness of craft lies in the honesty of the unconstructed, the contrast within an object, and the inherent qualities of a material itself. As well as curves and smooth surfaces, raw stone for example has edges and jagged corners. It makes us want to touch the surfaces instead of just looking at them. This interaction between sharpness and softness therefore makes for an interesting bottle. Embracing this i broke with the convention of creating a glass bottle and instead focused on a entirely different material: ceramic.
The clay construction of 'Dagda' reminded me of the origin story of humans. This added a layer of mysticism that seemed appropriate: the contrast between the clarity and fuzziness of the senses serves as a metaphor for the contrast between sharpness and softness I explored in the bottle. Since botanicals are connected to nature and rituals, but they also evoke rawness in my mind - both in appearance, taste, and smell - I chose Gin. In the fictional brand narrative "Malbon", mystics meet raw existence, while the bottle itself plays with our senses. Consumers with an eye for the extraordinary, who seek out new horizons in physical and metaphysical realms, will enjoy it.
Die Oberfläche jedoch sollte in starkem Kontrast zum Rest des Korpus stehen
ljóma - A bottle that evolves even in the hand of its user, an echo of the processes behind it.
Process in craft, in my view, is found in the value of every single step that leads up to a final form. By appreciating even the smallest moments in creation, we come closer to understanding the value of what we consume. Embracing this, I aimed to include elements of the production process of spirits in my design. The key element i focused on was ember: The heat, smoke, ash all lend different asthetics and parts of the creation process of both bottle and spirit.
As the process of spirit production is based on heat, I thought of whiskey when designing 'ljóma'. Whiskey's smokiness and burning sensation echo the process of distillation. This narrative concept 'Emberstone' explores that idea more in-depth: the print label for example mimics what a brewer would put on a barrel, while the centerpiece is made from copper-like material, with used edges and imperfections, reminiscent of stills. This narrative is aimed at consumers that see the production of a spirit as an essential part of the drinking experience.
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