Having Your Cake

Cell-phone designers improve the way we communicate; traffic-signal designers make crossing the street easier. And cake-plate designers? Well, they want to make eating cake more enjoyable. Lunar Design, a San Francisco-based industrial-design firm known for its work with companies like Packard and Palm, wanted to create something memorable—but economical to produce—to commemorate its twentieth anniversary. Working under the banner of its in-house think tank Moonshine, which was formed to tackle more conceptual matters, the company drew up a list of more than a hundred possible projects before settling on dessert. Related to an earlier idea to create a dish with slots for keys and a cell phone, the designers came up with a plate that accommodates just one thing—cake—but comes complete with a slice-shaped depression and a candleholder. “On a normal plate the candle is in the cake—you blow it out and you have nowhere to put it. Here you can leave the candle lit for a long time,” Lunar principal Max Yoshimoto says. Produced by Sausalito’s Heath Ceramics, the plate is available in chocolate, pistachio, and vanilla.