Do you know about the Japanese theory of mingei? Monocle’s creative director Richard Spencer Price recently tipped us off to the uncanny knack the Japanese have for honoring even the humblest of objects, thereby elevating them. In the West, Price explained, the most expensive item is deemed to be of the highest quality, “but in Japan, the best designed thing should be a teaspoon or a door handle; the thing you use every single day should be the best and have the most value.”
We couldn’t agree more. After years of carting home precious objects from design festivals around the world—the vast majority of which now serve merely as very pretty dust collectors in our homes—we felt the need to create a design product that’s as functional, versatile, durable and practical as it is good-looking. Fortunately around this time, we met Joseph and Sina at Visibility, who only make something new when it satisfies all these demands.
Together, we wanted to tackle one of the most mundane—yet constant—part of our daily lives: watering our house plants. At the time, none of us owned an actual watering can. As multi-taskers short on space in our city apartments, owning an object with a single purpose seemed excessive. So we asked ourselves: can we create one object that not only waters our plants, but also performs a host of other functions throughout our day?
The simple, elegant solution we devised is the Life Measured pitcher, made from hand-blown, lab-grade borosilicate glass to withstand intense heat (for brewing coffee or tea) and cold (hello, summertime margaritas). The color-coded silicone rings easily slide up and down the grooves, so you can mark the right levels for whipping up a batch of martinis, prepping for a meal, or, yes, watering your plants.
