Our weekly serving of off-the-menu items—a few popular favorites from the week as well as a few morsels that may have slipped your notice.
If you haven’t checked out The Dieline’s great editorial series, Design Nugget, take a moment today to fill-up on some light packaging trivia. Who knew that Oreos were originally packaged in cans and that Hubba Bubba was named for WWII-era military slang?
Photo by Sarah Lee for the Guardian
The Science of Taste at the Science Museum
Who knew you could get a PhD in spoons? Oliver Wainwright takes one for the team and goes through a blind taste test with seven different spoons in anticipation of the forthcoming exhibition, Cravings: Can Your Food Control You? at the Science Museum in London. He lives to write about it and the science of taste. Previously, we wrote about the work of Dr. Charles Spence and his research into how cutlery design changes the way we taste food. Molecular gastronomists, take note.
Spanish designer Martin Azúa designed a beautifully simple interactive breadbasket as a wedding gift—two gold rings serve as an embroidery hoop and the sides of the basket, a cloth napkin can be embroidered with love and creates a body for holding loaves of bread.
Designing NYC’s Public Drinking Fountains
A meandering stroll through the history of public drinking fountains—from ancient Jerusalem to the popularization of reusable water bottles—and the way that New York City’s infrastructure has shaped the development of those ubiquitous cast iron fountains found in public parks throughout the City.
Dutch Lab has unveiled its most recent steampunk cold brew contraption, the AKMA, a coffee maker inspired by the dramatic styling of super villains.
Titanium-Coated Wine Accessories
Danish designer Simon Legald designed a set of minimalist wine accessories—a foil cutter, wine stopper, corkscrew and a pouring spout—for Normann Copenhagen. The Basic Series is titanium-coated stainless steel and silicone.
The design biennial of Liege, Belgium has a call for entries for this year’s program. Focusing on the theme, The Taste of Change: Design for Food, the final projects will be on display in the Belgian pavilion of Milan Expo 2015.
