'Toast Me' Accessible Appliances
Toast Me was created for a week long design challenge with the primary focus being to create a language for home appliances that is approachable and friendly. The design DNA for this range hoped to improve the UX and accessibility of an essential kitchen product that has remained unchanged for decades. Often, appliances make their interaction points discrete; they can feel disjointed from the styling and design. Toast Me shouts about its function, bringing it to the forefront of the industrial design.
Due to the time constraints of this challenge, rough initial sketch work was used as a tool to identify possible design directions, all focusing on interaction and touchpoints. At a basic level, the purpose of this sketch work was to realise the possible routes that could be explored, with colour tones being selected digitally at an early stage to evoke a feeling of friendliness. The sketches were translated into rough block models where interaction points and proportions were further explored in 3D.
The rough data led to a more refined 3D concept which really focused on enhancing the 'lever.' The lever was designed to be accessible for anyone to press, even those with poor dexterity for example. Meanwhile the time dial was made simple and obvious, also doubling as an ejection button. The semantics of this design aim to pull the users attention to the interaction points, utilising a cutout in the form to prominently highlight the function.
For a kitchen appliance, the design language is soft and friendly; creating something that would fit in with a more contemporary living space, that also blends well with current trends in smart technology. Soft tones, colour, material and finish were all considered from the very start alongside the user interaction. The design allows for a range of two tone colour ways to be applied to fit in with the end users colour scheme and environment.
Extending the Range.
Every toaster usually comes with a matching kettle. To further push this design language, A 'boil me' kettle was mocked up which adopts the same DNA and focus on interaction points. It shows how this range could be extended to create a product family of friendly and accessible kitchen appliances and utensils. A 'brew me' coffee machine, a 'blend me' blender; an entire suite of products could sit in line with this styling.
Thanks for taking the time to view my work.
