Future of X: Artefact
Scenario:
As a result of the minimal amount of food produced and the growing population, there has been a change in the perspective of food.
It has become clear that eating is no longer an activity of pleasure or comfort. We can no longer eat to satisfy cravings or as a way of celebrating or connecting with others. Food is now purely consumed to keep us alive and to give us the nutrients we require.
After iterating sketches to generate ideas of artefacts for this future scenario, I chose 3 that I wanted to explore further.
The idea of the Nutra Cube was a cube full of nutrients. A meal ready at any time filled with nutrients the consumer can personalise to ensure they are getting the nutrients their body needs.
This is the future of farms. These community farms find their hectares of land by building up. Different levels will have different climates to grow a larger variety of plants.
The farm will also have a water system the reuses water. The people of the community will be able to have full access to this farm as if it was their own.
Mini glasshouses. These are collectable glass boxes with technology that can change the climate of the box to whatever is required for the users choice of plant.
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The user would input what plant it is that they want to grow and the box would provide the plant with the right nutrients and climate it needs to thrive for the user to consume
After listening to a captivating presentation from Julian Oliver, I grow an interest in controversial designs.
Designs that test us and force us to ask questions.
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Julian Oliver showed lots of his designs that inspired me to create an artefact that will create social conflict.
This influenced me to develop the idea of the Nutra Cube over the Mini Glass House boxes. Although I loved this idea and thought it would interesting to explore, I felt it didn't ask as many questions.
Also being in lockdown and not being able to make a physical artefact I felt it was more appropriate to explore a system type of artefact.
I worked on a system that was a zero-waste cycle right from the start. Part of the Nutra Cube will be made up of the consumer's food waste to eliminate it. What the consumers don't eat that is still perfectly edible will be reused in other Nutra Cubes.
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People don’t know about reusing the leftovers from the nitro cubes. It is behind the scenes. People just trust and know limited. This is to eliminate food waste as there isn’t enough to be wasted.
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This idea is driven by Julian Oliver's talk. When people can't see how it works they have to trust. He uses the example of our phones. The majority of people have no clue how the inner workings of their phone however, they use them every day for almost everything.
A variety of foods cut into perfect cubes. An article was written by Elyssa Goldberg asked how many of these foods could be identified. In this image by Studio Lernert & Sander, there are 98 different types of food.
According to Elyssa Goldberg's article, only 52 out of the 98 were able to be identified.
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This leads to the idea of people not being able to see the full picture. How if you are only given a section of food and it can't be identified people would have to trust it is what they are told.
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This is the case for most foods in packaging. When we buy food from the supermarket we trust the process of how it has gotten on the shelf or we are too scared to ask. We trust that what they say is in it is true.
There are rules and regulations in place to make trusting a lot easier. This is something I needed to look at when advertising the Nutra Cube.
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Article by Elyssa Goldberg: How These 98 Identical Food Cubes Were Made - May 18, 2015
https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/trends-news/article/food-cubes-art
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Studio Lernert & Sander - Cubes
Advertising Standards Authority
Advertising Standards Code 2018
https://www.asa.co.nz/codes/codes/advertising-standards-code/
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Upon reading the advertising Standards Code in quickly found there is a lot to follow. No wonder people have a lot of trust in what they are buying.
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I found Principle the most interesting and applicable for my artefact.
Principle 2: Truthful Presentation
Advertisement must be truthful, balanced and not misleading.
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It is not just not lying, but it is not to mislead the consumers as well. Although you could be 100% truthful if you are misleading a customer to persuade them to make a purchase you have led them wrong and ended up liable.
This has definitely influenced the choice of words when advertising the Nutra Cube.
Case Study
This is a company that creates healthy and ready to eat meal plans in the form of squares. The target market is anyone that is wanting to eat healthier by following a meal plan.
Unlike other meal plans, these get delivered to the customer door ready to be eaten. They create portion control through the form of squares; each square is 50g.
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When discovers SquarEats I was interested to see how they were advertising their products. The key point they convey is how healthy and convenient the meals are.
They also compare themselves to other meal plans and meal delivery services already out there. This is a way to clearly show why customers should use their product.
All images are from the SquarEat Homepage on their website.
Drawing inspiration from Pinterest I created Mood boards to help spark ideas on the composition of my images.
Inspiration Food Advertisement Posters
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I thought about how I could improve the process and system behind the Nutra Cube.
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To achieve the full process of being waste-free a had to think about the packaging that would be used. I needed to think about how the Nutra Cubes were being delivered and how the customer food waste was being returned to the kitchen/lab when the cubes are made.
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The packaging would need to be at a certain temperature to keep the fresh ingredients eatable. Most plant-based ingredients can last a week fresh and two weeks eatable.
The customers would order their food each week. Each week the Nutra Cubes would be delivered in a Nutra Cuboid (refrigerated packaging). The Nutra Cuboid will have two compartments, one for the cubes and a smaller one for the leftovers. Through the week the cubes can be stored in here ready to be eaten. On top of the Nutra Cuboid, there would be the delivery date and the collection date. At the end of each week what wasn't eaten would be collected along with the Nutra Cuboid and taken back to the kitchen/lab.
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When sketching some visualisations for the Nutra Cuboid I quickly realised that the black wasn't inviting enough. The more interesting a packaging appears to be, the more willing people are to give your product a chance. Speaking from first-hand experience.
Inspiration Infographic Posters
Inspiration Websites
For the Hero Image in this assignment, I thought it was most appropriate to show a website page. I thought this because the artefact I have created is based on a business idea. There is a whole system. The page on the website I have shown is the ordering page. This clearly shows how the user can order their cubes and how they can personalise them.
