Pinch Drizzle Dash

Winter 2023

3 month project

In my grandmother's forest there is a towering 100 year old maple tree, unkempt with many low hanging branches. This maple wood is used to make lids for once discarded glass yogurt jars, giving new life to both materials. Pinch, Drizzle, and Dash are inspired by the vague measurements used when cooking that are rarely appreciated for their ambiguous flair.

How much is a pinch, drizzle, or dash?

Process and Ideation

ReMade is a class assignment where students find a waste material to remake into a new product.

Problem

It is inconvenient to use a large salt shaker for small pinches of salt, which results in too much or too little salt.

The sticky mess that can come with storing honey in traditional containers.

It is difficult to add a couple tablespoons of spices to a pan quickly and efficiently while cooking.

Design Objectives

Create a form with ascetics that aid and compliment the function.

Optimise the flow and function of the cooking process.

Problem Statement

Create a family of products to increase efficiency, cleanliness, and useability in the kitchen.

Use Natural or waste materials to create a new effective product.

Final Product

Pinch

Lid is used to portion salt for when you only need a pinch.

Drizzle

Lid is used for honey when you only need a drizzle.

Dash

Lid is used for portioning spices for when you just need a dash.

The products made by all students were taken to a local design store to be purchased by people.

Pinch Drizzle and Dash were sold out within a week of the opening event.

Ideation

This project started out as a personal project trying out different forms and ideas. The lids had different functions including some that are now the final model.

During this stage the lids were focused on different functions with some form exploration. the functions ranged from food to hobby focused. The final three forms are focused on food to keep a consistent theme.

The last prototypes for form and function are finalized.

Materials:

Oui glass jars

Maple branches

Manufacturing

Wood stencils are laser cut to create more consistent product form and speed up production time by 5-10 minutes per unit.

Packaging Design

The vertical strip packaging would restrict the lid from being inspected buy customers and would obscure the honey stick in Drizzle. The horizontal strip packaging is easier to assemble, requires less material, and is easier to read.

The packaging will be laser cut which requires no ink or cutting. This reduces packaging time to only include laser cutting the labels and attaching them to the product.

The labels are made from reused packaging material which is recyclable and compostable.

User

Name: Rachel

Age: 32

Occupation: Food Blogger

Location: Urban apartment with a small kitchen

Rachel is a food blogger who is passionate about cooking and creating new recipes. She enjoys using fresh ingredients and experimenting with different flavors and textures. She has recently been struggling with small inconveniences in her kitchen, such as having to use a large salt shaker, spice jars that are inconvenient to poor large amounts, and struggling to store honey in an efficient way.

Rachel needs a solution for using small pinches of salt conveniently and efficiently. She wants a product that can be easily stored in her small kitchen and is easy to use. She also needs a better way to store honey, such as a container that can be easily squeezed or poured. Additionally, she needs a quick and convenient way to add spices to a pan while cooking.

What I Learned

A large portion of this project involved the challenge of manufacturing 30 products to sell at a local store in Bellingham named Ideal. However my product was a set of 3 so I needed to solve the problem of manufacturing 3 different products within the time constraints. After concluding the ideation process and arriving at the final design, I began producing the final products. These took on average 20 - 30 minutes to make on the lathe. Realizing this was way too much time, I devised a way to expedited the manufacturing process using stencils to create a consistent and faster process. This reduced the manufacturing time to approximately 15 minutes.
Sticking with the spirit and theme of ReMade, I wanted the packaging to be minimal and made from recycled materials. After considering what packaging would display the product and communicate the most information, I needed to find a manufacturing method and material to make it out of. I figured I could modify a font and laser cut the lables which would require no ink or cutting by hand. Using recycled paper I created the design and assembled the packaging for the final product.
The idea for this project came before the announcement of the project. I found my roommate creating a collection of these nice glass jars and realized I could give them a new more functional life. After creating a few prototypes I brought the to my class to show them off when my professor strongly recommended I utilize this concept for ReMade. I wanted to spend as little as possible on this project which required locally sourcing all materials except for stickers which were on the bottom of each jar. The entire project costed a total of $1.