Design

Nobody Puts Peanut M&Ms in the Corner: Meet the Candy Convertible

April 24, 2017

Candy Convertible - UncommonGoods

 

Perhaps you’ve never thought of the snack journey: That epic pilgrimage certain foods make from their cabinet confines to your coffee table. Find comfort in the knowledge, though, that Houston-based designers John Paul and Roya Plauché have.

“We were exploring the relationship of food and the snack journey from the kitchen to the living room,” John Paul said about the design process, which was a collaboration with the UncommonGoods Product Development team. “We had initially tried to identify the typology of foods that would be common for this type of transition, then build around them and their possible groupings.” The “typology of foods” they landed on: Sweetus Snackae. Street name: Candy.

The Candy Convertible lets you mix and/or match your favorite snacks

 

For the design, the Plauchés decided to focus on the idea of containing and parsing.

“We wanted to explore these in a more kinetic and customizable way,” John Paul says, “and introduced actively reversible and dividing concepts.” The concept (ironically inspired by a pie chart) considers “the ergonomics of balancing and grabbing multiple small snacks from a bowl, while being able to define the portions you would like for each.”

Candy Convertible - UncommonGoods

Candy Convertible - UncommonGoods

With that, their latest exclusive design for UncommonGoods—the Candy Convertible—was born. Not your grandmother’s candy dish, it’s a modern solution for serving candy and nuts that features four removable, laser-cut maple dividers that allow you to create your optimal assortment (John Paul and Roya’s: Salted almonds, M&Ms, and some dried cranberries).

Early prototypes of the Candy Convertible offered abundant opportunities for snacking product testing

 

The team decided crafting it out of ceramic would give it an heirloom quality, a choice that fits with the Plauchés’ overall approach to their designs, which they describe as “a process of distilling ideas down to seemingly simple solutions that are elegant, understandable, and somewhat restrained. These are the type of products we feel that can stand the test of time, and add beauty to an everyday engagement without being overbearing.”

Unlike us when chocolate-covered espresso beans are involved.

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