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Designing a Bottle

blog.soylent.com

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Re: Designing a Bottle

#111

Post by ensiferum »

jitl wrote: post #45
dvcc wrote: post #34

Why not just go with a square carton design? Now the whole rectangle is full and they're mostly recyclable (I think?). It would probably also normalize Soylent into something like milk.

The blog post cites visible damage from door delivery shipping as the major design issue that they were trying to solve. (Paper) cartons are much weaker and less resilient than plastic bottles. Think about the number of times you've seen dented or folded chicken soup cartons on supermarket shelves... I've certainly seen plenty of Safeway soup boxes to avoid because of obvious exterior damage. I don't think cartons wo…

And what exactly is the problem with denting? As long as the contents aren't spilled it should make no difference, no?

Re: Designing a Bottle

#112

Post by [deleted] »

rahilb wrote: post #103

reminds me of possibly my favourite document of all time, the pepsi galaxy. https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell... > The Pepsi Ratio is created by two simple circles, that are in a set ratio to each other: The Golden Ratio. > The Pepsi Ratio is aesthetic geometry. > The Golden Ratio establishes a proportion of one part (a) relative to another (b). Playing by these rules produces an aestetic t…

[deleted]

Re: Designing a Bottle

#113

Post by amelius »

d--b wrote: post #81

I wish they made a blog post about how they came about to think that Soylent was a good branding name. Having seen the movie, it makes me want to barf just looking at the bottle. This is not a joke, I actually feel nauseous because of the name.

Also, lots of people (especially men) avoid anything with "Soy" in it because it is said to contain compounds which mimic estrogen. This was debunked [1], but still, it may hurt marketing.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11880595

Re: Designing a Bottle

#114

Post by amelius »

zichy wrote: post #91

Dear (Soylent) designers, please stop comparing yourselves with big names like Kubrick or Rams. You designed a plastic bottle - no more, no less.

> You designed a plastic bottle - no more, no less.

To be fair, I often have the same reaction when I see CSS posts on HN.

E.g., this one recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14588924

Re: Designing a Bottle

#115

Post by mseebach »

vinchuco wrote: post #66
gyrgtyn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of plastic is this? Actually, I don't care; I wish disposable plastic in general would go away. Isn't part of their marketing greeness? But their model is keurig-for-calories? They _could_ refuse to do the plastic bottles and ship paper bags of powder...

A keurig type machine for soylent paper bags would be an interesting sight. Now I wonder how keurig even began convincing people to use their unconventional methods for coffee.

> Now I wonder how keurig even began convincing people to use their unconventional methods for coffee.

It's a simple, self-contained way to freshly and quickly brew a single cup of coffee with no mess, and priced for consumers: Cutting a few annoying chores out of a rushed morning at a cost of a few tens of cents per cup.

In what world was that ever a hard sell?

Re: Designing a Bottle

#116

Post by Gatsky »

Normally I would find this sort of thing quite interesting, but this is somehow... inauthentic. As is Soylent in general. Reading their blog posts, you are never quite sure if they are serious about the whole meal replacement concept or if it's actually a big joke.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#117

Post by heartbreak »

wingerlang wrote: post #51

The blog post doesn't make it very obvious which bottle is actually new, I assume the left-most on the first image? The second image have them flipped and the last image is not the most clear. The first image, second bottle also look "more designed".

I suppose that's true if you only look at the pictures and don't bother actually reading the article.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#118

Post by Sean1708 »

gyrgtyn wrote: post #44
ethagknight wrote: post #8

Wouldn't a Boxed Soylent (sealed bladder in a box like boxed wine) be most efficient for shipping to consumer, and most efficient for consumption? If they are really trying to optimize every aspect, that seems like the solution (from my armchair!). My first thought when seeing the headline was "oh boy, Silicon Valley has been shopping something in a bottle for 1 year now, and now they're experts in bottle packaging i…

What kind of plastic is this? Actually, I don't care; I wish disposable plastic in general would go away. Isn't part of their marketing greeness? But their model is keurig-for-calories? They _could_ refuse to do the plastic bottles and ship paper bags of powder...

Why not just make them out of recyclable plastic?

Re: Designing a Bottle

#119

Post by lightbyte »

hueving wrote: post #73
Tepix wrote: post #71

They had a lot of problems with mold in the past with the bottles. They don't mention that in the article - i guess they don't want to draw more attention to that disgusting issue. But the mold issue was probably an important factor in their bottle design as well.

Do you have a link to read more? Has it been solved? I sometimes buy these for road trips and I would like to avoid drinking mold.

They solved that problem a long time ago by making the caps sealed on the bottle. They originally were not, and some of the liquid would get lodged up along the rim of the cap during shipment. That was the part that got moldy.
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