Food Design

Subcategories

Design With Food is the design that decomposes, melts, swells, mixes and reassembles food as a raw material, transforming it to create something that did not exist before in terms of flavor, consistency, temperature, color and texture. The food designer, in this case, is usually the chef and could be a food technologist. An example of this category is ‘Espesso’ by Ferran Adrià and Lavazza. It is a coffee, lighter than a mousse but firmer than a foam. Other examples are the very famous Fruit Caviar, by Ferran Adrià again, a creation that looks exactly like caviar but tastes like fruit, or the “Drink me potion” by Heston Blumenthal. This last is a drink that proposes, in different layers, the flavors of toffee, hot buttered toast, custard, cherry tart and turkey to recreate the same astonishing experience that Alice in Wonderland had.

Food Product Design is the design of food to be mass produced. Some examples, besides the Pringles and the Toblerone in the previous page, are every shape of pasta, packaged ice cream and chocolate pralines and tablets. Another very interesting example is the Cookie Cup from Lavazza, designed by Luis Sardi together with the team at the Lavazza Training Centre and Cataldo Parisi. The Cookie Cup is made of pastry, covered with a special sugar icing which works as an insulator, and makes the cup waterproof, hence allowing you to use the cup and then appreciate its taste. The project that won the 5th Food Design Competition, organized by the design studio OneOff, is ‘Rompibollo’, a chocolate tablet where each piece of chocolate, all with different weights, gives an indication of the amount of calories. The name is a pun that emphasizes the annoyance of paying attention to the calories, and recalls with assonance to the Italian word for “stamps”, whose shape is evoked by the edges of the tablet’s pieces.

Design For Food is the design of all the products useful to cut, chop, mix, contain, preserve, store, cook and present food. In this category we find all the products that are part of the preparation, distribution and communication of food. The packaging is not only a container, but equally important, it is one of the means of the communication for the product, that will make it recognized and remembered. The most evident example of recognition of the product itself in its container is proposed by Coca Cola. The silhouette of the glass bottle has for long been a symbol that does not need the label to communicate its message.

Dish Design is the design of the composition of the dish. It is about visual aesthetic in the balance between colors, number and position of the components, in particular the main one. Dish Design is about creating the equilibrium between the food itself, its appearance and the concept that is proposed. In this case, as it is for the category Design With Food, the designer is usually the chef, because besides being the person that conceives the dish, he is also the person who thinks about its presentation.

Design About Food is a very interesting and enjoyable category of design. It concerns the design of objects inspired by food. Usually food as a material is not involved in this category, instead, food is used to emphasize, reinterpret or characterize the message to be thrown. The products that emerge from this methodology are carpets that look like giant fried eggs with round pillows to form the yolk, bath salts shaped as eggs and packed in the unmistakable eggs’ packaging, or the unforgettable Magritte Chair by Roberto Matta and produced by Gavina. This was inspired by ‘The Son of Man’, probably the most famous work of Magritte, a painter of the surrealist movement, where connections between objects were to be made in the minds of the viewers, not “emotionalized” by the artist. From this concept comes Magritte Chair: a big bolero hat with a huge green apple on it. The apple is a surprisingly comfortable seat, and it is made from cold-formed plastic foam covered with apple-green elasticized cloth.

Food Space Design and Interior Design For Food is the last category proposed, and is about the design of food spaces considering all the characteristics of the eating environment or food environments, such as interiors, materials and colors but also lighting, temperature and music, as well as the employees clothing and behavior towards the customers.

Interior Design For Food is about products of interior design conceived for food spaces such as kitchens, bakeries, patisseries, bars and restaurants. Even if in this category too, food is not involved as a material, the methodology used in Interior Design For Food involves knowledge from many aspects regarding food: from food preparation, for an understanding of the better material to design a work top with, to the eating experience dynamics, to be able to design the right light, temperature and colors in the eating environment.