Steven Heller praises the Solo Traveler lid, but the entire product line is worth a closer look.
As you sip your afternoon pick-me-up, consider Steven Heller's take on the humble Solo Traveler, aka the coffee lid. It's ubiquitous, it's barely noticeable, it's... Freudian?
The Solo Traveler lid is a substitute for a mother's breast--what we might call nature's original travel lid. The flat covers with the tear-back openings offer no such metaphoric representation. Instead, spout = nipple. Paper cup = warm skin. Coffee, tea or soy = mother's milk. Ergo the lid is a nurturing apparatus.
The product design of the coffee industry has gotten more and more high-tech: there's the Clover, the hand-held espresso-maker, this wacky 88-drops-per-minute iced coffee maker... Not even my trusty Chemex is safe! But in the midst of that caffeinated hoopla, one item has remained, if not entirely unchanged, than at least unswayed by snobbery and science.
In...
As you sip your afternoon pick-me-up, consider Steven Heller's take on the humble Solo Traveler, aka the coffee lid. It's ubiquitous, it's barely noticeable, it's... Freudian?
The Solo Traveler lid is a substitute for a mother's breast--what we might call nature's original travel lid. The flat covers with the tear-back openings offer no such metaphoric representation. Instead, spout = nipple. Paper cup = warm skin. Coffee, tea or soy = mother's milk. Ergo the lid is a nurturing apparatus.
The product design of the coffee industry has gotten more and more high-tech: there's the Clover, the hand-held espresso-maker, this wacky 88-drops-per-minute iced coffee maker... Not even my trusty Chemex is safe! But in the midst of that caffeinated hoopla, one item has remained, if not entirely unchanged, than at least unswayed by snobbery and science.
In...
- 3/5/2010
- by William Bostwick
- Fast Company
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