I finally had a break from all my work and I got to review some more eye candy, and no, I don’t mean watch a James Bond flick. I looked slowly through the November Design Annual of Communication arts and as always, I was impressed with the variety of work. They break it down into package, print, and other media. It is so much fun to compare the designs amongst each other and get inspired by the variety of work.

Designs ranged from the commonly seen Apple iPod nano package to bottles of wine and other liquid food products. I was most intrigued by a short article that appeared in the design section though. It was on Welch’s Grapes Jelly. The article explains how design goes beyond aesthetics. Design should take into account not only how the user sees the product, but how they interact with it.

I went camping 4 or 5 months ago (oh how i miss the warmth) and I bought a bottle of squeezable grape jelly for the connivance of it. Nothing says p-b-and-j like a low income camping trip. The bottle was great, even though I didn’t use it on the trip, I got back home and craved a sandwich the next week I was amazed at the innovation. I never though I could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without cross contaminating my knife. The bottle not only solved this problem, but it made it easy to get that slippery jelly on the bread.

The article in Comm Arts referenced exactly the consumer experience I had. Welch’s redesigned this bottle and their sales went up. Just from a simple redesign of a bottle, the consumer was instantly more attached to their product. Not only is the bottle a good design, it is a functional design that increased sales. How many times do I design something that looks good on the outside, but on the inside the user experience just stinks. Go Welch’s. Thank you for inspiring functional design.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 9:43 am and is filed under Reads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.