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 As good-enough-to-eat colors invade industrial design, food itself is the latest product to benefit. June 2001
But in the past few years the trend has been reversed. After the skyscraper-tall entrées and castlelike desserts of the 1980s and '90s, edibles are now enjoying their salad days of influencing the look of designed objects. As Jonathan Ive, who headed the iMac design team, explains on apple.com, "We had to make sure that the color and level of translucency were exactly the same in the first computer and every one thereafter. This led us to finding a partner who does a lot of work in the candy industry." Candy. Of course--everyone loves candy. So much so that the iMac's fruity-tooty design made other industrial designers salivate. Can you taste the blueberry in the Swingline stapler? Have you licked the cherry-wheeled Razor scooter? And now the trend seems to be doubling back once again. The "food" that has influenced the biggest design force of the last few years isn't exactly au naturel, and so real food--like that brunette who wants to have more fun--has had to undergo a makeover. Supermarket products that would have seemed immune to an identity crisis look like Willy Wonka ran them through the gob-stopper machine. Witness Heinz, whose EZ Squirt green ketchup rolled out last October with much fanfare. Kelly Stitt, brand manager for new products at the company, says extensive focus groups with kids--the number one consumers of ketchup--are the inspiration. Since kids are also the number one consumers of candy, perhaps Heinz's method is not so different from Apple's; the product's success is certainly comparable. "What Heinz had originally anticipated to sell in one year, the company ended up selling in the first three months," Stitt says. Another makeover success story comes from Mott's, the apple people. The company's blue applesauce was inspired by a tie-in with kiddie show Blue's Clues. Company spokesperson Chris Curran says that its success has led Mott's to go over the rainbow: you can now get your applesauce in hues of green, purple, orange, and red. Ironically, whereas adults see their iMacs as tangerine or lime, it's the unfoodlike quality of these same colors that seems to appeal to kids. "It's their way of saying 'Ha-ha, Mom--I get to eat this stuff!'" Curran says. |
