2 min read High-Tension

High Tension - Episode 2

A Ballerina walking on a suspended cord above New York City
A Ballerina Standing on a suspended Cord above New York

Match your coffee cup to your mood, then turn it around. Simple, smart, and unexpected. Plastic takeaway coffee cups usually scream “grab and go,” a quick cash-in before you’re out the door. But Gawatt [1] Emotions flips that message, quite literally.

Image via [https://pentawards.com/] (Public Domain).

Experience design 101 - Co-Creation

This is experience design at its finest: transforming the mundane into the memorable. Customers co-create the experience. And that’s what sticks in their minds.

As John R.Kelly explains, when it comes to leisure, users are not merley receptive, they should be allowed to interact with the design. [2]

With a twist of the cup’s outer layer, you can display a happy, sad, or sleepy face to match your mood. It’s a clever design that makes tossing the cup away feel like a waste. Suddenly, it’s not just a disposable cup; it’s something you want to keep, adding a longer life cycle to an otherwise throwaway product.

By turning a disposable item into something personal, Gawatt adds emotional value and extends the product’s lifecycle. An unexpected win for sustainability.

Lesson

What other ‘throwaway’ moments in your designs could be transformed into something worth keeping?

References

  1. (2024). Amazonaws.com. https://evessio.s3.amazonaws.com/customer/c053fd79-5c06-416a-b159-9345dd4fde9f/results/images/600_medium/2015/150_backbone_gawatt.jpg
  2. Kelly, J. R. (2013). Leisure Business Strategies: What They Don't Teach in Business School. United States: Sagamore Publishing.
  3. Wiedemann, J., Jean Jacques Evrard, & Evrard, B. (2010). The package design book Pentawards ; [from the winners of the pentawards package design prize]. [1]. Köln Taschen.

Sam Rad