04.03.08
Small and virtually perfect
I’m having a slow day, lacking motivation or energy, and my eyelids feel heavy, so the only answer so coffee. Black Crack in liquid form, possibly only trumped by redbul rip offs from Tescos in potency.
As I made the coffee I notice quite how perfect the small milk containers all. These teeny tiny pots (they must have a name), fit into the palm of your hand and hold a tablespoon full of milk, you’ve probably used them a hundred times and never looked. I certainly hadn’t. They are masterpieces of design.
The plastic body must be made out of a piece of thin plastic that starts life as an oddly shaped circle (a circle with a child circle tagged on the side I guess), probably about the size of a 2p coin. This is then extruded to form incredibly thin walls, which despite being thin enough to see the shadow of your finger inside, hold in the pressure of me squeezing the little pot in an ill-advised mid-office experiment.
The walls are also ridged, a tiny detail but which means the pots and so much more easily gripped. They don’t rotate in your fingers, and if they are cold and have condensation on (which they will because you wave them above our cup of hot water) they remain very grippable. I doubt the fins add enough surface area to radiate heat more easily, but it’s not impossible.
Where the body of the pot joining the tab which you will hold to open it, it flairs out, forming a teeny tiny spout. This makes pouring far more easy, and means that the shape of the foil lid can’t be circular but instead has a natural “tab”. This means that you automatically grab the tab to open it, and pour it using the spout, completely without noticing .
The foil lid is equally clever. To start with it’s not foil, it’s very thin plastic. Thus it won’t degrade like foil, or be as easily dented or damaged. It is however silver coloured on the underside, to remind you of the foil that was and convey a sense of normality. It’s glued to the top (I think), thought it might have been sealed in place with a quick blast of heat to melt it to the plastic pot. It remains however very easy to pull off, and another benefit of not being foil - it doesn’t tear and splinter like metal yoghurt port lids. The tip of the lid which protrudes out of the circular top and onto the tab of the tub is however not glued down, in fact it’s curving very slightly up because of the tension. You can’t help but use this bit to open it. Amazing!
So this little pot of milk has so clearly been designed (and redesigned) so as to be instantly usable. The amount of airline pots I’ve struggled to get into (and ended up stabbing at ineffectually with the plastic knife) is unreal, but with a few simple changed, this pot just works.
If only software was the same, so intuitive.
Heidi said,
April 27, 2008 at 5:41 am
The funny thing about this is the length at which you describe something that happens in a flash- these little guys are made a kajillion at a time, sent through their assembly line, filled and sealed in seconds. I toured a few large milk facilities that are clients of mine in Dallas. The machine makes non dairy creamers one day a week and the rest of the week it makes half and half. Watching the machines make milk gallons was interesting too.
coldclimate said,
April 27, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Heidi - I thought you were a camera girl??
Ali said,
May 7, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I absolutely love the anaylsis of the design here buddy. It’s not often enough people stop and recognise those little packaging pixies who (unlike the idiots who design most of the packaging that electronics come in) have come up with what is presumably a low cost but user friendly option.
However dark clouds are gathering.
http://www.pennineteaandcoffee.co.uk/commercialcoffeeingredients/Milk_Portions.htm
Scroll down to the diarystix (I even hate the name - who uses a f!@king ‘x’ instead of ‘cks’? - cox). While be sold as a positive for their lower storage requirements. However, much like the little satchets of Rustlers ketchup (don’t ask) they create a mess in the opening (invariably some of the product gets trapped up in the top above the opening and gravity does the rest), they break (who has ever torn a straight line), and unlike our friend the milk pot automatically create a mess when you put them down on any surface.
Dark times indeed.
coldclimate said,
May 18, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Completely agree Ali - anything which replaces cks with x should be banned.