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Designing a Bottle

blog.soylent.com

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Re: Designing a Bottle

#41

Post by IgorPartola »

tannerc wrote: post #23
sushisource wrote: post #10

Seems like a lot of effort to design an exact equivalent to an Odwalla bottle.

But isn't that exactly what design should do? Not mimic for the sake of mimicry, but attempt to better understand the rationale for any decision and ultimately designing with intent . The homework is the meat of the thing. So what if the result is the same? At least the team behind the work now understands how they got there—and communicate as much to their current or potential fan base. I wouldn't want to hire a bab…

I see your point, but I'm going to call a bit of bullshit on it. What you are saying makes sense if the team then moves on to perform similar tasks again and can use this institutional knowledge to their advantage. But here it seems that the team was actually at least in part comprised of outside consultants. So they did spend two years of Soylent's time and money to design and Odwalla bottle. Sure it makes for a cool story, but it seems more like they could have saved themselves about 18-20 months by looking harder for different packaging options instead of inventing new ones, not to mention the money that went into this. No really, they didn't mention how much this cost.

Your comparison can actually be used as a counterpoint to your argument: maybe they should have hired someone who didn't need to look at so many reference designs to figure out sqround.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#42

Post by idlewords »

emmett wrote: post #13
rubatuga wrote: post #2

Same! Complete! Nutrition! More efficient! Please, it’s a bottle design. Is Soylent trying to create a following like Apple fans? At least Apple makes good products.

"I am upset because someone working at a company wrote a blog post to share their design work on a new bottle." What's the value of sneering at someone else's work like this? Why the mean tone?

Because the parent post is ridiculously pretentious, and funny.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#43

Post by mbesto »

rubatuga wrote: post #2

Same! Complete! Nutrition! More efficient! Please, it’s a bottle design. Is Soylent trying to create a following like Apple fans? At least Apple makes good products.

> Is Soylent trying to create a following like Apple fans?

Everyone is trying to create a following like Apple.

Key ingredients:

1. Simple name

2. Simple design with no instructions or "bells and whistles descriptions"

3. Act as if design is 75% of your value proposition

If it isn't obvious, this doesn't always work.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#44

Post by gyrgtyn »

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...

Re: Designing a Bottle

#45

Post by jitl »

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 would get them very far in that area.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#46

Post by microcolonel »

supernumerary wrote: post #11
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…

I think the one requirement for this design was: "Just don't make it a bag and have the consumer have to squeeze it" - c.f. Juicero

By the way, you don't need to put a period in between the c and f in cf, it's shortened from ConFer. Typically it's styled "cf.".

Re: Designing a Bottle

#47

Post by hyperdimension »

rubatuga wrote: post #24
gtm1260 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think its interesting to see the thought process of the people who make what we see in the world. Sure, it is just a bottle, but that doesn't mean that someone didn't put time and effort into making a good one.

I mean, sure, but don’t act like you’re changing the world. This is nothing more than marketing. Also, 5 seconds of thinking would tell you that a juice box has more packing efficiency than a bottle. (I also have had a bad experience with Soylent)

Do tell...

Re: Designing a Bottle

#48

Post by rdtsc »

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.

They are selling a lifestyle and an experience more than potions of liquified nutrients. As such the packaging, the marketing, the blogs about it are very important (maybe even more important than what's in the bottle).

It's a bit like people go and pay $5 for a cup of coffee in a coffee shop. They are buying the experience more than the coffee.

Re: Designing a Bottle

#50

Post by khedoros1 »

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.

Shipping durability (plastic instead of a cardboard carton) and ease of machine handling ("sqround" instead of square). Both are covered in the blog.
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