ImaginativePRO Blog

TO LURE CUSTOMERS, DESIGN YOUR PRODUCT PACKAGING TO APPEAL TO ALL 5 OF THEIR SENSES, AND DON'T FORGET THE SOCIAL APPROACH

STUART LESLIE, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF 4SIGHT INC, OFFERS SIX TIPS FOR PACKAGING YOUR PRODUCT AND CAPTURING CONSUMER ATTENTION.

We know that consumer purchase decisions are often made quickly and subconsciously, but there are opportunities where it’s possible to influence a consumer’s perception of a brand. People often make buying decisions by using all five of their senses and once product designers discover what each of these sensory influencers are, they can develop packaging that strategically speaks to consumers at each stage of the decision-making process. It’s ultimately about designing a complete experience--one that supports the brand every step of the way.

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Consumers prefer their drinks not simply cold, but chilled to the perfect temperature, are taken through a progression of exercises that mimics the various points of contact that consumers have with a product.

We identify which bottle shape, size, color, material, and texture promises that sense of cold refreshment at first glance. As the test subjects move closer, details such as condensation and frost become evident and when they are handed several bottles, each chilled to the exact same temperature--but made of different materials, textures, shapes and finishes--they provide feedback on which one feels like just the right cold.

In the Sensory Lab, our process helps us ensure that at each stage of interaction with a brand, consumers receive the right information, enabling them to see, feel, hear, smell, and taste the value of the product. Here, we've identified the six stages that lead to a first purchase or a repeat purchase:

THE FIRST GLANCE

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POM Juice, the distinctive profile of the bottle featuring those fully rounded spheres, allows the distinct dark red color of the juice to catch the attention of a shopper. It promises a bold, robust taste.

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A new entry into the tequila segment, SX Tequila chose a distinctive, curvaceous bottle with smooth lines and frosted texture to communicate the sense of a smooth-tasting, chilled beverage.

THE INSPECTION

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Here, consumers take a closer look and this is where details begin to hint at tactile sensations. Flowing details etched into the structure of the Orangina water bottle strongly suggest the refreshment that the product provides.

THE PHYSICAL INTERACTION

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Next, consumers make that first physical contact and combine the visual with the tactile experience. When grasped, the gentle curvature of the Febreze bottle and the angled spray head convey the soft and pleasant aroma that will fill the air.

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The smooth, diagonal neck on the new Miller Lite Bottle promises a refreshing flow of beer while the bold taper from the neck to the body provides a strong and confident grip for the hand. Adding the texture of the hops etched in the glass provides further engagement.

THE OPENING

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When the consumer makes a physical step towards consumption or use of the product, there's another opportunity to solidify your brand's perception. When the foil cover is peeled off of a can of San Pellegrino, it offers the sensation of actually peeling fruit. It also incorporates a crinkling sound, which adds to the sensory experience at opening.

CONSUMPTION OR USAGE

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The point at which the product is consumed or used and here, all five senses can be at play.

Clinique's dark circle corrector containers offers a convenient applicator on the side of the container tip that provides for a clean usage experience and preserves the product for future consumption, as fingers do not contaminate the cream.

THE COMPLETION 

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There's another opportunity to create a pleasant user experience when the product is disposed of or put away for later use. Wrigley 5 Gum incorporates a lock feature and embossed details to convey a secure and clean resealable pack.

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The Oreo cookie package also utilizes the sense of sight with a resealable film to promise lasting freshness. Once the film is replaced after each usage, it recreates the look of a fresh, unopened package.

In The Sensory Lab, we’ve gleaned significant insight into how the five senses influence consumer decision-making at six pivotal points. Incorporating a similar approach in your design process will help insure your package effectively communicates key brand attributes at each and every point of influence.

COMMENTARY:  In a blog post dated September 10, 2011, I pointed out the importance of utilizing both a sensory approach and a social approach to marketing to the Millennial Generation, but this approach can apply to all generations.  As human beings we keenly rely on all five senses when interacting with the outside world.  We translate the signals that our five senses capture and communicate to our brain into some type of decision.  This includes making choices about everything, whether it is the clothing we wear, the food we eat, the medicines we take, the places we prefer to visit, and so forth.  So YES, the five senses enter into everything.  When combined with the decisions that we make subconsciously (another subject altogether) this is how humans react to marketing stimuli.  Although not mentioned in the aboe article, the social approach is also very important in making marketing decisions.  Today, we rely very heavily on the opinion of our friends and relatives in making a final purchasing decision.  This could be person-to-person opinions or indirect through product reviews often found online.  As marketers we must not only rely on the sensory approach, but not forget the poweful impact of the social approach in formulating our marketing strategies, programs and tactics.  

Courtesy of an article dated January 15, 2014 appearing in Fast Company Design

TWO COPER UNION UNDERGRAD STUDENTS DESIGN THE 'RAPID PACKING CONTAINER,' A CARDBOARD BOX FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

TWO COOPER UNION UNDERGRADS CONSTRUCTED A BOX THAT'S LESS WASTEFUL, EASIER TO PACK, EASIER TO OPEN, AND GOOD LOOKING, TOO.

While some companies, like Ecovative, are tooling around with highly sustainable alternatives to shipping products around the world, two undergrads have just reinvented the humble cardboard container itself to be more efficient.

Extremely wasteful, environmentally harmful, and hard to put together, the standard cardboard box is as much of a practical necessity as it is a bane to a country dominated by big box retailers, warehouse clubs, and free SuperSaver shipping. Where others looked at the ubiquitous cardboard box and saw a necessary evil, undergraduates Henry Wang and Chris Curro saw a problem that needed to be solved. Their solution? The Rapid Packing Container, a cardboard box for the 21st century that is not only less wasteful than traditional paper boxes, but which can also be put together in seconds and easily reused.

As students at the Albert Nerken School of Engineering at Cooper Union, Wang and Curro started by identifying a few key problems with existing cardboard boxes: they use too much material, they are hard to open, and difficult to pack. The design of the Rapid Packaging Container addresses all of this and more.

 

Some of that cardboard will inevitably be recycled, but not as much as anyone would hope: in 2011, only 37% of all fiber used to make new paper products came from recycled sources. That means that up to 63 billion cardboard boxes a year are made out of newly felled trees.

For the Rapid Packaging Container, Wang and Curro used about 15% to 20% less cardboard than traditional paperboard packaging, while maintaining a maximum 260-pound load strength. The Rapid Packaging Container gets away with using less cardboard thanks to the physical redesign.

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The Rapid Packaging Container's uses cardboard that when folded makes it strong enough to support the content of the box's load weight, even though tape might be the only thing holding it closed.  Wang and Curro realized that by designing their Rapid Packaging Container so that the bottom of the box was a single, structurally-sound piece of cardboard, they could eliminate a lot of waste.

This top-loading system also has another practical benefit: it's much easier to fold. All you need to do to fold the Rapid Packaging Container into the right shape, in fact, is take an unfolded box and press it into a custom jig, then close the top and affix it with the built-in adhesive strip . Comparatively, a regular cardboard box needs to be folded manually, and then reinforced with packing tape, which can be a cumbersome and error-filled process.

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The Evocative Rapid Packaging Container is a packaging dream for many companies. But the end-user design is delightful too. Instead of ripping open a taped-together cardboard box, opening a Rapid Packaging Container is as simple as pushing a tab on the top of the box and having the whole thing unfold itself flat again before your very eyes. Even better, it's fully reversible, meaning that if you receive one in the mail, you can just turn it inside-out for a label free box that you can then send to someone else.

According to Wang and Carro, the Rapid Packing Container already has a patent pending, and the clever design duo are currently looking for manufacturing partners. Anyone else hoping that a company like Amazon invests to make the Rapid Packing Container the cardboard box for the 21st century?

COMMENTARY:   I have a feeling that the U.S. Post Office and Amazon are going to be calling these two young college students about producing and using the new Rapid Packing Container cardboard box much sooner than anybody every though. 

Courtesy of an article dated January 6, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

TWINE: A KICKSTARTER PROJECT THAT RAISED TOO MUCH MONEY, THEN SHIPPED LATE DUE TO POOR PLANNING AND "MURPHY'S LAW"

Twine, a gadget that promises to make your your washing machine tweet when the laundry is done and your basement send an email when it floods, raised more than $500,000 on Kickstarter in 2011 (Click Image To Enlarge)

When Twine's creators signed up for Kickstarter, they thought they'd make about 200 devices using the same $20 toaster oven they had purchased for the prototype. Then they raised more than $500,000.

Twine is exactly the type of sensor-stuffed, Wi-Fi-connected gadget you would expect to take off in Kickstarter's tech section. The device promises to make your washing machine tweet when the laundry is done and your basement send an email when it floods. Blogs called it “the future” within a week after debuting. Nobody was surprised when it raised more than half-a-million dollars--except for its creators.

Supermechanical expected to make about 200 Twines after running its Kickstarter project. Instead, it ended up shipping 4,000 of them to Kickstarter backers (Click Image To Enlarge)

When John Kestner and David Carr posted Twine on Kickstarter in November 2011, they had set their fundraising goal at $35,000. Their plan was to produce about 200 units using the same process that created the prototype. But six weeks later, having raised $556,541, they were now committed to shipping almost 4,000 units. The homemade wax mold used to create Twine's prototype was no longer going to cut it, and there wasn't another plan. Kestner tells Fast Company.

“We were definitely not thinking of the risk of being too successful.” 

Twine's creators, John Kestner and David Carr, who call their startup 'Supermechanical,' prototyped Twine in the basement of a dorm (Click Image To Enlarge)

In scaling their manufacturing process, tasks the team of two hadn't considered--customizing a $15,000 set of tooling, designing packaging, communicating with backers, and searching for components--added up to an unmanageable number of full-time jobs. Twine’s estimated delivery date of March quickly became unrealistic.

Despite the disproportionate attention that superstar Kickstarter projects like Twine get, they're rare. Most projects raise less than $10,000, and until last year, none had raised more than $1 million. But as Kickstarter's scale rockets, breakaway projects like Twine are becoming not only more visible but more common. Seventeen Kickstarter projects passed the $1 million (or euro equivalent) milestone last year. Six of them, like Twine, were gadget projects, which are arguably left in the most awkward position after breakout success. When a Kickstarter project involving hardware takes off, what started as a dream and a prototype can morph into a mass-manufacturing commitment within a couple of weeks. It’s something of a Cinderella story--but one in which Cinderella must learn how to navigate mass manufacturing overnight. Here is how it worked out for Twine.

Twine's prototype cost just a few hundred dollars to create. Its first version's outer casing baked in a $20 toaster oven (Click Image To Enlarge)

Stage 1: Prototyping

Prototyping Twine cost a few hundred dollars. Recently graduated from MIT’s Media Lab, Kestner and Carr “squirreled away” a space to work in the basement of a Harvard dorm. Carr already owned a soldering iron and the electronics equipment for Twine’s circuit board, and he carved a wax mold for Twine's blue outer casing using a milling machine that he had built himself. Silicone and urethane cost about $100 at a local supply shop, and the toaster oven where Twine's first casing baked for six hours cost another $20.

Carr made the wax mold for Twine's outer casing with a homemade milling machine (Click Image To Enlarge)

It wasn't until the third day of the Kickstarter project, when Twine's funding passed three times the original goal, that the pair of inventors realized Twine had scaled past this manufacturing process.  Kestner says.

“If we had done 4,000, it would have taken months just to physically manufacture them. That’s not including all of the development time.”

Carr already owned the soldering iron and electronics equipment he needed to create Twine's prototype circuit board (Click Image To Enlarge)

3-D printing, Github-type sites for creating hardware such as Upverter, and makerspaces like Boston-based Artisan Aylum have all made the path to creating a functional prototype or a small batch of gadgets easier.  Scott Miller, the CEO of a production consultancy called Dragon Innovation that has about 20 Kickstarter projects as clients says. 

“But the big gotchya is that is really just the beginning, and there’s a tremendous amount of work to do after that. Because the entrepreneurs have a lot of unknown unknowns, they don’t really know how far along the timeline they are. And typically they will think they’re a lot closer to getting volume on the shelf or e-commerce than they actually are.”

The tooling for Twine's outer casing wasn't as easy to 3-D prototype, and the resulting component wasn't usable the first time around. Had the Supermechanical not gotten a refund for a mistake with the factory's software, it could have cost them $15,000 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Stage 2:  Surprise Scaling

Though Kestner had studied industrial design as an undergraduate, he had never actually produced a physical object on a large scale. “To be honest, I Googled a lot,” he says.

All of Twine’s manufacturing partners and most of its component sources are located in the United States, which successfully avoided the problems with language, time, and cultural barriers that Kickstarter projects such as Pebble and LIFX have dealt with while manufacturing their products in China. Even without overseas manufacturing, however, there were plenty of unanticipated challenges.

The company that manufactured Twine’s outer casing, for instance, didn’t design the tooling it used to shape them. Kestner did. Whether or not his designs ended up being functional, they each would cost $15,000. Twine’s gut, the part that holds its circuit board, is made of hard plastic and was easy to test with a 3-D printer before putting money down for the real deal. But only one 3-D printer would prototype the tooling for Twine’s rubber casing, and the results weren’t nearly as accurate as the gut prototypes. When the actual metal tooling arrived, it was a disaster. The case was too tight, and it looked terrible. Problems with the manufacturer’s preview software got the team a refund, but the lost cost could have killed the project. Even with the refund, it cost time. All together, it took five months to just design Twine’s outer casing.

Twine’s gut, the part that holds its circuit board, is made of hard plastic and was easy to test with a 3-D printer before putting money down for the real deal (Click Image To Enlarge)

Meanwhile, Twine’s first employee coordinated the delivery of 100 components to the factory that assembled Twine’s circuit boards--a job that was part scavenger hunt and part logistical Olympics. Kestner worked on a design for Twine’s packaging and put together a website for managing Twine backers’ new addresses and international shipping costs.

By the time the casing and circuit boards began arriving in June, the team had moved to Austin. Boxes started piling up in their new workspace (Click Image To Enlarge)

By the time the casing and circuit boards began arriving in June, the team had moved to Austin. Boxes started piling up in their new workspace.

By the time Twine's parts were ready for assembly, the team had moved from Boston to a workspace in Austin, TX (Click Image To Enlarge)

The casing arrived from an injection molding plant in Minnesota. Circuit boards came from a manufacturer in New Hampshire. And the 8-piece boxes that Kestner designed himself came from North Carolina in large flats.Supermechanical, the company behind Twine, had already spent nearly all of its Kickstarter money. It had overshot its estimated shipping date by three months, and it hadn’t even started putting devices together.

A factory in New Hampshire assembled Twine's circuit boards. Its cases were made in Minnesota, and its packaging manufactured in North Carolina (Click Image To Enlarge)

Stage 3:  Missing The Deadline

It isn't just first-time hardware entrepreneurs that struggle with the manufacturing demands of surprise scaling via Kickstarter. Pebble Technology's CEO, Eric Migicovsky, has been working on smartwatches for four years. The company manufactured about 1,500 units of its first product, InPulse, at a Bay Area manufacturer. But the 85,000 Pebble smartwatches the company owes Kickstarter backers after raising $10 million on the site required a shift to an overseas manufacturing process, and--though Migicovsky says this plan B existed in advance--the company missed its September estimated delivery date.

In fact, most breakaway hardware projects have missed their deadlines. iPhone station Elevation Dock shipped about six months late. Virtual reality headset Oculus Rift initially set its expected delivery date for October, but announced recently that it now expects to be delivering developer kits by March 2013. By one estimate, only 25% of Kickstarter’s design and technology products deliver on time.

Twine technician tests each finished Twine for quality control issues.  This is a very time-consuming procedure, but a necessary evil in order to avoid returns for defects, requests for refunds and the resulting bad publicity (Click Image To Enlarge)

Being late is not necessarily a big deal. Kickstarter is, after all, designed to support unfinished projects. A bigger problem is reaching a Kickstarter funding goal only to realize that the funding can’t come close to covering your costs. Twine, for instance, set its goal at $35,000—aiming as low as possible in order to avoid missing it. 

Kestner says.

“If we had gotten less than we did, but still met our goal, that would have really hurt us; we would have lost money.  There’s an uncomfortable valley between hand-making stuff and being able to have the capital to invest in tooling and all the stuff that goes into mass manufacturing that you just can’t get good prices on without mass production. So what do you do? You can’t afford to hand-make 1,000 of something.”

Dragon Innovation’s Miller says he often gets panicked calls from Kickstarter project creators who can't feasibly complete their projects. Their creators did not understand the manufacturing costs when they set their goal. Their timeline is unreasonable, or their design isn’t actually manufacturable.

Miller says. 

“They’ve also spent the money, and Amazon and Kickstarter have taken their cut.  They can’t even give back the money. It’s kind of a really unfortunate position to be in.”

Stage 4:  Delivering Against The Odds

Kestner asks at some point while describing Twine's journey from Kickstarter funding to shipping,

"What’s that quote that says,  'If I knew how hard it was to do it, maybe I wouldn’t have started in the first place?'"

Kickstarter doesn't provide any warnings. While it approves projects before they go live on the site, the process is more like filling out a college application than an investigation into the project’s feasibility. In September, however, the platform took its biggest step in preventing hardware projects from drowning in their own success (and the phrase "Kickstarter vaporware" from entering the vernacular) by banning renderings and simulations.  it advised in a blog post.

“The best rule of thumb: under-promise and over-deliver.”

Earlier that summer additional guidelines for design and technology products required information about creators' relevant experience and a manufacturing plan. Kickstarter has also advised against posting finished products on the site, remind its users that "Kickstarter is Not a Store." So what is the appropriate amount of risk?

No matter how overwhelmed by their projects, all six of the Kickstarter gadget creators I interviewed for this article talked about the opportunities Kickstarter gives entrepreneurs to solicit input and test demand for a product at an early stage.  Kestner says.

"It’s okay that you have the chance to fail.  That’s how good stuff gets made. You’ve got to have the chance to fail."

Some did say they wished they had waited until later in the development process before putting their gadgets on Kickstarter.  Some couldn't have afforded to get further along in the process before their Kickstarter campaign. Alex Hawkinson, the CEO of the company that makes SmartThings, a platform for connecting objects to the Internet that raised $1.2 million, said his product was already on track to ship when the campaign first went live. He set the reward thresholds knowing that he'd pretty much break even.  He told Fast Company.

“We were on track to launch the product at the end of this year anyway, but we were all Kickstarter users, and thought it was a great way to get the word out and sort of build on that three-legged stool.” 

Even without being prepared for it, Twine’s creators successfully navigated the mass manufacturing process by picking up new skills as they went. Now with a staff of five, Supermechanical started snapping units together last summer. Each of the 4,000 units took about 10 minutes to assemble, test, and package: A total of about more than 650 hours.

Supermechanical finally shipped its first 25 Twines in September--about six months after the estimated delivery date.

Kestner and Carr celebrated with a nice dinner.  Kestner says. 

"We didn’t cry.  But it was a great, great weight off."

The next day, they dove into what is sure to be a never-ending series of unexpected challenges: The circuit board assembler couldn’t keep the schedule it had agreed to, some of the shipped Twines returned in the mail, and, with the Kickstarter project behind them, it was time to address the small task of turning Twine into a sustainable business.

Kestner says.

“I’m a workaholic.  I’ve always been a workaholic, but this is the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. It’s not free money. That’s for sure.”

COMMENTARY:   The thing I see happening with a lot of entrepreneurs building something is their lack of knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of manufacturing.  Developing production-ready prototypes, preparing precise engineering drawings and bills of materials, and exacting tooling is extremely important.  Several of my former clients didn't both to provide manufacturer's with precise engineering drawings or a bill of materials, or take into account the useful life of the tooling, or factor in additional tooling as production qualities scale.  

My recommendation for startups is to avoid assembling the finished product yourself, not unless you care about your family and kids, don't have much of a social life, and you have a high tolerance for pain and frustration.  Do what the big boys do.  Work only with individuals experienced with the manufacturing process from start-to-finish.  They are familiar with the material specifications, and whether the finished product will holdup during regular use.

If you can afford to produce several working prototypes, do so, then conduct a thorough A/B market test in order to determine if the product satisfies customer needs, provides a great overall experience, and provide you with the feedback to make any last minute changes to the prototype before you go into production on the final finished product.  Again, I can't tell you how many times entrepreneurs dive right into manufacturing without conducting an adequate market test, only to encounter quality control issues and huge numbers of product returns.     

Courtesy of an article dated February 5, 2013 appearing in Fast Company 

 

BLOOM CHIPS, A NEW PRINGLE'S PACKAGE DESIGN THAT MAKES THE OLD TUBE UNFURL INTO A BOWL FOR EASY SERVING

The new Bloom Chips package unfurls into a serving bowl to replace the old boring Pringle's potato chip tube (Click Image To Enlarge)

ONE DESIGNER’S FURY AT PRINGLES BLOSSOMS A BRILLIANT IDEA IN SNACKING.

Young designer Dohyuk Kwon encountered the same problem we all have before: He was enjoying a package of Pringles potato crisps until, suddenly, he found the chip level had sunk to a critical expletive-laden stage just below the reach of his fingers.  He tells Co.Design.

“So I sketched a more convenient package of chips.” 

His concept is called Bloom Chips, and it won a Red Dot Award for its obvious brilliance: Bloom Chips is a wrinkled cylinder that unfurls to create its own bowl.   Kwon says.  

“Its mechanism is more complex than it looks.  Simply speaking, it’s like a blooming flower.”

The idea is so instantly impressive that it’s impossible to imagine why no one at Procter & Gamble thought of it first.

Bloom Chips packaging concept for Pringle's boring packaging (Click Image To Enlarge)

Though, there is some precedent in the world of self-contained snacking: The design reminds me a bit of Jiffy Pop, which uses a similar, expandable packaging to make its own container. Kwon responds.

“I didn’t know Jiffy Pop until a few minutes ago, It’s very, very interesting. I guess once there was a man who complained about existing popcorn package, so he made the package for Jiffy Pop.”

(Interestingly enough, Jiffy Pop really was the project of one man! Frederick C. Mennen, a chemist and inventor from LaPorte, Indiana, developed the product in 1958. But actually, another man invented Jiffy Pop first. An identical predecessor was called E-Z Pop, developed by a Michigan-native named Benjamin Coleman. Coleman sued for patent infringement in the 1960s, but the case was turned over in appeal.)

Bloom Chips will likely never convince Pringles to change their cans, but that’s okay. For one thing, we really don’t need to be enticed into eating a whole package of chips every time we pop open a new can. But more importantly, pouring those unreachable Pringles crumbs straight from the can into one’s mouth is one of the simplest, most wonderful pleasures in life. And really, it’s a delicious byproduct of design gone wrong.

COMMENTARY:   Now that's what I call a cool design that really makes sense, but I doubt that Pringles will change their old packaging just to add a convenient serving bowl.  I do love the design, though.  

Courtesy of an article dated April 9, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design

HOW PETER HERMAN HAS RADICALLY REINVENTED THE DISPOSABLE COFFEE CUP, ELIMINATING PLASTIC LIDS

Called Compleat, the all-paper design has a built-in lid with sipping spout.

I buy many cups of coffee and habitually cringe when reaching for a plastic lid. It’s pretty hypocritical to make a point of avoiding Styrofoam, only to slap a petroleum disc on a paper cup. (And yes, I know that carrying a travel mug would obviate the issue.) Fortunately for me (and my eco karma), a designer named Peter Herman has come up with a greener, all-paper disposable cup that folds closed like a takeout container to form a sipping spout.

Herman spent two years of his spare time--he’s an architect at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm Ellenzweig--and made close to a hundred prototypes in the process of refining the folding design he calls Compleat. The construction is simple: The body and two integrated flaps are composed of a single piece of paper; the body is glued to the circular base. Like similar cups on the market, the paper would be waterproofed, though ideally with cellulose-based plastic, so that it could be composted. Herman partnered with Daren Bascome, of graphic-design firm Proverb, to make use of all three surfaces for branding messages.  Herman tells Co.Design. 

“Since the average customer has a paper cup in their hands for 16 minutes, the additional surfaces give retailers considerably more opportunity to reach their customers in a meaningful manner.”

Plus, Herman estimates that Compleat could ultimately save retailers money, since it’s just one piece (instead of the usual two) and can be sourced through a single supplier. But he adds that figuring out the “hard-cost implication of the cup” will require “direct collaboration with manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.” Regardless of the cost benefits, Herman thinks that the iconic shape will perform priceless PR, conveying the retailer’s commitment to environmental stewardship.

The launch date for the cup is still unclear, says Herman, who is in talks with manufacturers and retailers.

“There are important variables ranging from the required modifications of existing cup-making machinery to long-term contractual arrangements between manufacturers, distributors, and retailers that will all influence the rollout timetable.”

Let’s hope that he sorts it all out soon. Compleat is the type of overhaul to an everyday product that could have a huge impact.

COMMENTARY:   That's what I call a unique and novel idea that I have a feeling will become the new standard for paper and styrofoam coffee cups. Some of the simplest things in life are the most beautiful and practical.  I can see a whole like of recycled paper packaging products for hot food and snacks.  The sky is the limit.

Courtesy of an article dated December 9, 2011 appearing in Fast Company Design