
Designing a Bottle - dankohn1
http://blog.soylent.com/post/163186012757/how-to-design-a-bottle
======
ethagknight
Wouldn't a Boxed Soylent (sealed bladder in a box like boxed wine) be most
efficient for shipping to consumer, and most efficient for consumption? If
they are really trying to optimize every aspect, that seems like the solution
(from my armchair!). My first thought when seeing the headline was "oh boy,
Silicon Valley has been shopping something in a bottle for 1 year now, and now
they're experts in bottle packaging innovation, but I was pleasantly surprised
by the write up. They identified problems unique to their product and
addressed them. Nothing earth shattering glass, but also not settling for
status quo. It's minor but non-trivial, and it speaks to the attitude of the
overall product. I've been keeping Soylent around as a healthy meal-in-a-pinch
option and I really enjoy it, plain flavor and all. Super filling, tastes like
a plant-y pancake batter.

~~~
gyrgtyn
What kind of plastic is this? Actually, I don't care; I wish disposable
plastic in general would go away.

Isn't part of their marketing greeness? But their model is keurig-for-
calories? They _could_ refuse to do the plastic bottles and ship paper bags of
powder...

~~~
vinchuco
A keurig type machine for soylent paper bags would be an interesting sight.
Now I wonder how keurig even began convincing people to use their
unconventional methods for coffee.

~~~
mseebach
> Now I wonder how keurig even began convincing people to use their
> unconventional methods for coffee.

It's a simple, self-contained way to freshly and quickly brew a single cup of
coffee with no mess, and priced for consumers: Cutting a few annoying chores
out of a rushed morning at a cost of a few tens of cents per cup.

In what world was that ever a hard sell?

~~~
vinchuco
One with coffee filters

~~~
7Z7
Have you used a Keurig? Or Nespresso?

------
zichy
Dear (Soylent) designers, please stop comparing yourselves with big names like
Kubrick or Rams. You designed a plastic bottle - no more, no less.

~~~
sametmax
You are very condescending. These people are trying to do something, they
share the process, they try to get some inspiration from people they like.
What's the big deal ?

~~~
zichy
If I go to the supermarket, almost every smoothie bottle looks somewhat like
the new Soylent bottle. I can't tell if they actually took inspiration from
Dieter Rams, but it's really easy to refer to him since he is like the father
of modern industrial (consumer) design.

Soylent is an enterprise and they want to make themselves to look as good as
possible in order to generate more revenue. No reason not to criticize awkward
marketing blog posts like this.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I envy you. Could we import that style to Europe sooner?

The juice bottles from "The Martian" movie are the epitome of consumer product
design for me:

[https://media1.giphy.com/media/11bglU5OG7SJAk/giphy-
facebook...](https://media1.giphy.com/media/11bglU5OG7SJAk/giphy-
facebook_s.jpg?t=1)

(I apologize for the crappy image; I'm nowhere near a copy of the movie to
make a decent screenshot)

No bullshit. Just the product name and necessary information about its
content. No useless colors, no pictures of animals, smiling faces or other
crap. There are days I dream of starting a food company just to make food in
such packaging.

~~~
joshvm
This already exists in Europe. In the UK lots of companies us sqround bottles,
like Innocent Smoothies:

[http://www.wowfreestuff.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2014/12/Inn...](http://www.wowfreestuff.co.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2014/12/Innocent-Smoothie-Free-300x300.png)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't mean the shape but the label. But still, I didn't even realize
"sqround" is a word. Thanks!

~~~
joshvm
I think Vitamin Water is pretty good in terms of clean marketing, except they
fail when you actually read the rubbish copy on the label.

[https://www.thewrendesign.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/vit...](https://www.thewrendesign.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/vitamin-water-label1.jpg)

Tesco's old Value range was also pretty good for telling you immediately
what's in it: [http://www.s4rb.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/01/Old_Tesco_Val...](http://www.s4rb.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/01/Old_Tesco_Value_range.png)

------
softwarelimits
Inacceptable! Unfortunately "designers" nowadays feel more like self-loving
"artists" rather than problem-solving engineers - we need better education!

"Inventing a plastic bottle in 2017" \- this could be joke, but the ignorance
behind it makes me angry.

[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782/tab-
pdf](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782/tab-pdf)

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768)

[http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/1/4/140317](http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/1/4/140317)

~~~
Piccollo
Design is about art though

------
finkin1
This is a nice blog post - what's with all the hate? So it's basically a
marketing tool, but isn't that what blogs are for? As a customer of Soylent, I
appreciate that they are writing blog posts about their thought process. It
feels nice to be communicated with. Also, I highly doubt a detailed blog post
like this is going to convert many new customers - seems like it's mainly for
existing ones.

FYI, the new bottles are a nice improvement. There's no wrapper at the top
anymore, which is sometimes annoying to open and creates extra trash, and the
shape of the bottle is more space efficient for packaging and storage.

~~~
RodericDay
> So it's basically a marketing tool, but isn't that what blogs are for

depressing thought

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
True for "corporate blogs" but remember there are still plenty of people
(maybe more than ever?) maintaining personal blogs for their own less
nefarious purposes as well.

------
rahilb
reminds me of possibly my favourite document of all time, the pepsi galaxy.
[https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-
arnell...](https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-
arnell-021109.pdf)

> The Pepsi Ratio is created by two simple circles, that are in a set ratio to
> each other: The Golden Ratio.

> The Pepsi Ratio is aesthetic geometry.

> The Golden Ratio establishes a proportion of one part (a) relative to
> another (b). Playing by these rules produces an aestetic that is universally
> accepted to be in balance and harmony. The Pepsi aesthetic respects these
> rules: The brand identity can be derived from two circles, that have a set
> relation to each other.

~~~
cyphar
Note that while that document is absolutely hilarious and almost believable, I
believe that it was shown to be a fake some time ago.

~~~
dkonofalski
I think the majority of the document is real but some of the pages have been
swapped out with fakes. I totally believe that some pretentious designer did a
lot of the backlog of work to look at the history of the design and I have a
hard time believing that someone would put in all that effort to find those
images, trace them in a vector art program, and then wireframe them just for a
laugh.

------
vinchuco
I wish more companies put out there the rationale for their design choices.
Not sure why a lot of comments here are so negative about them doing their job
and communicating it.

~~~
rubatuga
Soylent pretends to be things it isn’t. This is easily one more example. This
post reeks of “hipster”: name dropping of famous aesthetic designs, space
references, black and white photos of milk bottles, some mathematical looking
diagrams, talk of perfectionism (two years development)?

This is a marketing ad, nothing more.

“the same complete nutrition you have come to expect from Soylent”

------
d--b
I wish they made a blog post about how they came about to think that Soylent
was a good branding name. Having seen the movie, it makes me want to barf just
looking at the bottle.

This is not a joke, I actually feel nauseous because of the name.

~~~
hedgew
I quite liked the European competitor's original name, Joylent. To avoid legal
issues they eventually changed the name and somehow ended up with "Jimmy Joy".
That name was so intensely disliked that they renamed it again in about a
month.

~~~
morsch
The company still seems to be named Jimmy Joy, and the product Plenny Shake.
Both somehow strike me as really terrible brand names. Can't find anything
about a subsequent rename.

That said, I'm a customer of theirs, and daft names aren't going to change
that.

------
idlewords
This is what happens when you overfund a company. Artisanal blog posts about
the two-year journey to a flat-sided bottle of nerd purée.

------
JshWright
There are tons of bottles with that shape on the shelves of my local grocery
store... It's quite common with any drink that isn't carbonated (and therefore
doesn't have to contend with higher pressures). Juices, teas, etc...

~~~
coldpie
Yeah, I'm left wanting. I thought maybe there was something interesting going
on, but instead they seem to have discovered that rectangles pack more
efficiently than circles. That's it? I learned that in geometry class as a
teenager.

------
dkonofalski
I normally really enjoy insight into product design, but this whole thing
seems a little masturbatory. Braun's designs were great because _other people_
recognized that they were smart and simple. It seems like Soylent is squarely
aiming for the hipster market (I'm not really sure what else to call it) where
people praise an extraordinary effort regardless of if the end result is
noticeably better.

I'm not saying the bottle design work wasn't better or that the product
doesn't benefit from it, but the write-up about it has this sense of self-
satisfaction that puts a bad taste in my mouth (completely disconnected from
the taste of the actual product which I can't really comment on).

------
dvcc
Why not just go with a square carton design? Now the whole rectangle is full
and they're mostly recyclable (I think?). It would probably also normalize
Soylent into something _like_ milk.

~~~
jitl
The blog post cites visible damage from door delivery shipping as _the_ major
design issue that they were trying to solve.

(Paper) cartons are much weaker and less resilient than plastic bottles. Think
about the number of times you've seen dented or folded chicken soup cartons on
supermarket shelves... I've certainly seen plenty of Safeway soup boxes to
avoid because of obvious exterior damage.

I don't think cartons would get them very far in that area.

~~~
dvcc
I've never really seen milk cartons delivered towards schools or shops (think
juices and milk) be damaged all that often, but I'm not watching their
deliveries either! I just imagined it was a problem already solved for non-
pressurized drinks.

~~~
pervycreeper
Those are often transported in thick reusable crates rather than cardboard
boxes.

~~~
weego
Then maybe soylent were solving the wrong problem

~~~
jclardy
Milk cartons delivered to a school can be in a crate of hundreds, Soylent is
delivered to a single person in a box of 12 or so.

A few cartons being damaged in the school delivery is fine, but even one
damaged in the Soylent delivery means an angry customer.

------
Gatsky
Normally I would find this sort of thing quite interesting, but this is
somehow... inauthentic. As is Soylent in general. Reading their blog posts,
you are never quite sure if they are serious about the whole meal replacement
concept or if it's actually a big joke.

------
Animats
Next, they're going to announce they invented the 6-pack.

~~~
batbomb
At least most things that come in a six pack taste good

~~~
ucaetano
Well, they could claim they invented the bad-tasting six pack!

------
sushisource
Seems like a lot of effort to design an exact equivalent to an Odwalla bottle.

~~~
tannerc
But isn't that exactly what design should do? Not mimic for the sake of
mimicry, but attempt to better understand the rationale for any decision and
ultimately designing with _intent_. The homework is the meat of the thing.

So what if the result is the same? At least the team behind the work now
understands how they got there—and communicate as much to their current or
potential fan base.

I wouldn't want to hire a babysitter to watch my child if their sales pitch
was: "I've watched a lot of babysitters in movies, I know what I'm doing."
It's a bit of a silly comparison of course, but the point remains: how you get
to a result is just as important—if not more important—as the result itself.
That's good design!

~~~
Spooky23
I guess it depends on how much time and money you want to waste.

A team of people spent two years supposedly working on this. That same team
could probably have gotten samples from 4-5 manufacturers and selected an
Odwalla bottle with a brand design in 2-3 weeks.

It just seems silly and wasteful to me. But hey, it's not my money!

~~~
gwbas1c
A distinctive bottle makes the product stand out

~~~
costcopizza
How distinctive can it be when to the average consumer it's the same as
Odawalla?

------
wingerlang
The blog post doesn't make it very obvious which bottle is actually new, I
assume the left-most on the first image? The second image have them flipped
and the last image is not the most clear.

The first image, second bottle also look "more designed".

~~~
heartbreak
I suppose that's true if you only look at the pictures and don't bother
actually reading the article.

------
drozzz
First time I had heard this:

 _a pressurized cylindrical container pushes outward with equal force in all
directions. This is crucial for pressurized beverages._

My favorite bottle redesign
([http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2010/3/15/ecocoke.html](http://www.minimallyminimal.com/blog/2010/3/15/ecocoke.html))
was done on Coca-Cola and had a similar "sqround" shaped bottle, but I don't
think he considered the pressure in the bottle.

~~~
mrob
I find it hard to believe that the asymmetric design has optimal
strength:weight ratio, which means it's not 100% eco-friendly. It looks like
it's deliberately wasting material so it can have a distinctive shape that can
be design patented, instead of a fully optimized generic bottle.

~~~
tjl
That's the difference between a freshman design project and an actual design
used in practice. It's unlikely he has the mathematics/engineering background
to do a proper analysis of his design.

He's not thinking of the bottle as a pressure vessel (which it is).

------
Tepix
They had a lot of problems with mold in the past with the bottles. They don't
mention that in the article - i guess they don't want to draw more attention
to that disgusting issue. But the mold issue was probably an important factor
in their bottle design as well.

~~~
hueving
Do you have a link to read more? Has it been solved? I sometimes buy these for
road trips and I would like to avoid drinking mold.

~~~
lightbyte
They solved that problem a long time ago by making the caps sealed on the
bottle. They originally were not, and some of the liquid would get lodged up
along the rim of the cap during shipment. That was the part that got moldy.

------
bykovich2
Does anyone still drink this stuff?

~~~
misframer
Yes

------
kristianc
What is with this trend of making all products look identical?

Surely a product's design is meant to give some indication of what is in the
product and what the product does?

This just looks like a completely generic bottle and could as easily be for a
foodstuff or a cleaning agent.

I saw something similar the other day, a 'brandless' supermarket where
everything is designed in a similarly minimalist way. It's infuriating.

[http://designtaxi.com/news/394281/A-Fabulous-Brandless-
Onlin...](http://designtaxi.com/news/394281/A-Fabulous-Brandless-Online-
Grocery-Store-Where-Everything-Is-Priced-At-3/#)

------
tonyb
As someone that has a few commercially produced products (BBQ Rubs and Sauces)
I never cease to be amazed by how much work the packaging piece of the puzzle
is.

I easily spend as much time worrying about bottle, closures, labels, etc. as I
do about the actual product.

------
mfrykman
Pretty sure that Industrial Designers call this a "squarecle"

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Ninjalicious
Sqround is a great word which I will use now. Perfect for describing that
weird ovoid square with fillets.

------
sidcool
Pleasantly surprised to see 2001 reference there. That movie was so ahead of
its time.

------
rubatuga
Same! Complete! Nutrition! More efficient!

Please, it’s a bottle design. Is Soylent trying to create a following like
Apple fans? At least Apple makes good products.

~~~
dkonofalski
It does seem like they're trying to create a following like Apple. Instead of
letting the work speak for itself, though, Soylent seems to think that they
can incite that kind of appreciation.

~~~
throwaway7645
Apple might have some good products, but a lot of bad ones as well with a
whole lot of marketing and devoted fans that will wait in line all night for
it, so really not that different.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm not an Apple person by a long shot (full-time Linux desktop / Android
user) but I'm struggling to think of an outright _bad_ product that they've
put out in the past 15 years or so... I guess the Watch had its shortcomings
and the specs on their computers are falling behind the competition but
everything they put out seems very well designed and engineered.

~~~
throwaway7645
Watch, new computers lacking many peripherals unless you buy a bag of dongles,
rehashing the same product over and over while software upgrades make them
obsolete...just saying marketing is a huge part of what apple does.

------
paulcole
Clever trick to host all their blog images on imgur. My only wonder is if they
legally licensed those Dieter Rams and Kubrick images?

~~~
majewsky
Not familiar with US law (esp. re: fair use), but in Germany this would likely
count as a quotation and therefore be admissible.

