Audition for coffee makers. Exploring the identity of a timeless mass-product with animation

A side project within a wider effort for an exhibit at Tianjin’s Design Week on the very Italian relationship between design and coffee, the short animation we created offers an angle on how often design helps to confer character to industrial products. Given the very special place coffee has in Italian culture, the ‘caffettiera’, that small mass-produced artefact for brewing coffee at home, not only is a constant step through the history of our design, but is a key component of the Italian domestic landscape. Over time there- fore, legions of designers have taken up the challenge ending creating a few masterpieces as well as some mediocre pieces, and at times, even some abominable objects. Given that both the technology and the components of the ‘moka’ coffee maker model are the same, a comparative study of this industrial artefact allows to isolate form from function highlighting how, in their work, designers relate to visual metaphors and other elements of formal language to reach the market with a product with its own distinctive identity. In order to point out this specific aspect in product design for the public of Tianjin’s event we decided to create a short film in which animation, storytelling and irony offer a different – and we believe engaging – take on the inner meaning of designed products.