As we speak I’m working on a Food Design project. More on that in a later post, for now I just want to give you a short introduction of what Food Design is, or rather, some examples of what it can be.

(Pictures after the jump … of course.)

So What Is Food Design?

Well it can be anything really. Of course there’s the often thin line between design and art, but I choose not to care about that :). Food Design isn’t limited to just modifying food itself or presenting it nicely, anything surrounding food and eating can be subject of Food Design. Some examples ..

Food Design can applied by giving new form, color, look or even function to food. For example there are techniques for ‘printing’ on food, resulting in nice graphics or neatly patterned food. Even food the size of a pea can be decorated with a nice little graphic. Also new form can make possible new ways of eating the food. For example by making a dish into a snack you can eat with your hands or in another case, food could even become part of your cutlery.

But what explains things better than some pretty pictures … right? (Images are linked to their original sources.)

Engraved Peas by Martí Guixé

Picture nicked from mleak’s flickr - More info to be found there

Bread plates by Katja Gruijters

Breadbag by Katja Gruijters

But as I said, Food Design isn’t limited to the modifying of food itself. Everything surrounding food or eating can be redesigned/reinvented.

Of course there’s packaging. Real simple redesigns can be applied to make packaging more user-friendly or attractive, but why not try something more innovative …

Hardy Wines shuttle uses an acrylic glass to seal there single-serve bottles.

Some clever package design which allows mushrooms to grow during transport, resulting in a very fresh product and a huge cut in costs. Via Culiblog.

Also tableware is often subject of redesign …

‘Din-Ink’ by design by : andrea cingoli, paolo emilio bellisario, cristian cellini and francesca fontan. Picture from and more info at designboom.

‘Tripalm’ by yoshitaka hoshina. Again from designboom’s contest Dining in 2015.

In ‘Dinner Theatre’ by Kimberly Hu food becomes tableware. Picture from and more info at designboom.

But again, the possibilities are unlimited. Concepts for food establishments can be (re)designed as well as food related happenings/events … etc.

‘Food Facility‘ by Martí Guixé is a prototype for a business model. Through networking and outsourcing this facility can serve more than 9 kitchens and lots of drinks.

‘Candy Restaurant‘ by Martí Guixé in Tokyo, Japan.

‘GAT FOG‘ by Martí Guixé. Gin and Tonic Fog Party!

History and names

Actually, there doesn’t really seem to be very much history in Food Design. When googling for the term Food Design, only a relatively small number of relevant hits will show up. A name that you will stumble upon quite regulary is that of Martí Guixé. Over at food-designing.com, he says:

“Food Design is a discipline which had its first opening in Barcelona in 1997 with Martí Guixé: SPAMT.”

Other than Guixé’s work, google shows there seems to be some interest in the matter in the Netherlands. Myself I had the chance to meet Katja Gruyters, she gave a lecture at my school and feedback on our own project. Also the Japanese seem to be interested in Food Design, although I couldn’t find a lot of pages in English about this.

Feel free to post links to other examples and pre ‘97 stuff if you stumble upon some!

Want more? Check out these links:
http://www.designboom.com/contest/winner.php?contest_pk=21
http://www.guixe.com/
http://www.food-designing.com/
http://www.katjagruijters.nl/
http://www.culiblog.org/
http://foodfordesign.blogspot.com/

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.