Hasta La Ideas

These design-inspired sushi rolls have us questioning our lunch choices.

Core77 2013 Year in Review: Top Ten Posts · Furniture, Pt. 1 · Furniture, Pt. 2
Digital Fabrication, Pt. 1 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 2 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 3 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 4
Insights from the Core77 Questionnaire · Maker Culture · Food & Drink

From Kickstarted CNC cookware to sandwich doodles, we’ve had quite the year in food hacks and innovations. Some of them completely unnecessary (I’m looking at you, Budweiser beer can design) and some were absurdly awesome flags made of regional food favorites.

Beer

We started out the year with an influx of beer innovation in design in the form of a designer-centric drinking guide—to your brew’s color, that is. The Beertone Color Reference Guide is an ode to Pantone’s color swatch format that gives beer drinking designers an industry-friendly look at the brew they’re throwing back.

Of course, mainstream drinkers were more likely to come across some of the new beer packaging we saw. Sam Adams’ parent company, Boston Beer Co.—a group who had never previously dealt with the design of their cans—turned to IDEO to help them come up with the best of the best. And then there was that time that Budwesier developed a more “on-brand” shape with the curved form that matched their bow-tie logo. (We aren’t quite sure whether that accomplished anything or not.) And IDEO isn’t the only one getting involved in beer—Marc Newson took a stab at designing a storage system for Heineken, dubbed The Sub.

Lastly, PicoBrew helped us get our beer quicker with their Kickstarted brewing process in a week instead of the standard 6–8 weeks. It was just one of many crowdfunded foodie innovations this year, from a simple sous-vide device to an righty- and lefty-friendly ice cream scoop that made its debut in a classroom.

(more…)