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Monday, June 6, 2011

Meals From Scratch: Designer Read-Made-Ingredients Idea


Ingredients are easy to come by, but for those of us without a natural impulse to cook … it can be
a bit more challenging to figure out how we should put them together to make a real meal. Not anymore: this cool and convenient eating idea blends the best aspects of frozen food dinner (for folks who like things fast and easy) and the experience of having an actual fresh-made main course for supper.

A good graphic and product designer like Jeremy Innes-Hopkins knows that achieving simplicity can be remarkably complex. As much a cooking concept as a compelling product design, ‘Scratch’ provides people with an easy-to-prepare set of ready-made pieces that come together as a whole healthy entree in somewhat simpler form – all for sale from local grocery stores that hand-pack the products inside.

So what do you do when you want to communicate a clear idea? Use clear packaging (as well as basic fonts and legible colors, of course). Branded around ideas of simple, sustainable, fresh and direct produce and meat, the design solution is quite simple: brown paper-bag-style labels with bold print wrapped around clear containers that let you see what you are getting before you buy it.

Sustainably sourced from local food producers, this may not be quite as eco-friendly as the packaging-free stores popping up in various hip urban neighborhoods. Still, chopped, washed and weighed by hand without all of the shipping and such, the idea is a step forward – and is definitely a good deal greener than the way over-packaged and globally-transported frozen-food alternatives.