A Special Donut Carrier
September 22, 2020 — Day 1My chosen object for the carriers project was donuts, and I chose to make a carrier for round glazed donuts. The packaging of these donuts come in half-dozen and dozen, which are both rectangular paper boxes.
I began my studies by analyzing the formal qualities of my chosen object — Krispy Kreme original glazed donut. The donut has a 3 inch radius and is round with a small hole in the middle. The texture is sticky and glossy and soft, which requires them to be packaged with minimal contact to each other as possible.
The paper box, which does not resemble the shape of the round donut at all, is effective because it minimizes the contact between the donuts when packed tangentially to each other. Because the weight of donuts is not heavy at all, so the carrier does not need to be too stiff or layered to safely hold the contents inside.
Although I only analyzed the carrier for one object so far, some general functions that a good carrier must perform is to allow minimal to no movement of the materials contained in order to prevent any damage, being portable and easy to store, and to allow the user to easily operate (open/close/stack) with the carrier to access the content inside.
Some other characteristics that I observed while observing my donut box was that the box did not require any adhesives or supporting material to hold itself; the carrier was made entirely out of paper, which makes the production, assembly, and disposal of the container not only more easy but environmentally responsible as well (easily recyclable).
September 24, 2020 — Day 2
During today’s class, we did an activity of creating different 3-dimensional forms involving joints using our corrugated cardboards. I was assigned to create a stitched joint, which confused me in the beginning because I wasn’t sure how a firm material like cardboard could create the delicate and detailed ends of a stitched surface.
I then moved onto thinking on not recreating a stitch, but rather mimicking the behavior of stitching — like woven joints — or recreating the joints that are created by stitches and not the stitched part itself.
Since a lot of the times stitches are used to sew pieces of fabric together without emphasizing the stitched marks made by the threads, I decided to use weaves on the back side of the created joint.
September 29, 2020 — Day 3
My first sketch mockup donut carrier is focused on convenience and effiency in its use of space. I often thought that the lateral and flat donut box design used conventionally was ineffective in its use of space, because I thought a much more compact design could be achieved by stacking the donuts.
October 1, 2020 — Day 4
The previous sketch model that I created was mainly focused on the safe carriage of the doughnuts did not touch base on the aesthetics or other values beyond the materialistic importance. Therefore, the form of the carrier was much like a milk box rather than a container that really resembles the characteristics of my glazed donuts.
One of the discussions that I had previously with my donut team was that stacking the donuts only works for the ones without any frosting or decoration on top, so that it may be better to find a way to separate them. For me, I always thought that it would be a convenient to have individual wrappings so that people could take out the donut and eat it easily without getting sticky things on their hands. So this time, I tried to create a divider that also serves as a movable holder for individual donuts.
One challenge that that I faced today was creating a stable puzzle joint, because I wasn’t sure how strong the cardboard will be to sustain joint, and it was much weaker in holding the perpendicular joint than I thought it would.
During today’s class, our group discussed the qualities of donuts and ways we can convey those qualities effectively in our donut carriers.
October 6, 2020 — Day 5
One big takeaway from last class was that my group defined donuts more as a social food that are bought in multiple than in individual donuts. I wanted to place the context of my donuts as social gatherings and parties. To address the different types of social gatherings such as small conversations, parties, buffets, etc. I wanted my donut carrier to be able to show different displaying arrangements to aesthetically and functionally convey the idea of a social food.
My previous carriers did not demonstrate the qualities of donuts and without the objects being held inside due to their angularity and prism-like form, so I thought it would be difficult to tell what the carrier was for. This time, I tried to resemble the roundness of the donut more.
I tried to build rotatable carrier by creating individual modules that are connected by a hinge (this hinge needs a lot of improvement as of now). I created two modules as an example for now, but like the below diagram, more modules would be connected with hinges and the hinges would allow rotation between the modules to create different arrangements.
From a technical point of view, I’ve been struggling to keep the firmness of the cardboard as I cut them, and I think this is because I did not pay much attention to the supporting part of the pieces that needs to be larger in order to support the weight of the gaps between pieces.
Cutting itself was a challenge for me because my blade would get dull very quickly and the curves would be cut out irregularly and distort my circular forms. I struggled to make clean cuts in general as there were a lot of pealing cardboard skin, distorted lines, etc.
Also, to create a round effect, I used scores on one layer of the cardboard. Overall, I used scores to bend and fold the cardboard so that the cut would be visible from the outside. Although I think that this technique could achieve a sharp finishing for my carrier, I think it currently affects my carrier to appear more fragile and incomplete. If the external scores don’t work out next time, I should also explore making internal cuts in making folds.
October 8th — Day 6
I made a compromise to create angular boxes that could potentially remind the viewer of a circle, because cutting a circle was very unsuccessful last time.
After debating between an octagon and a hexagon, I decided that a hexagon would be more effective since I will be making a carrier for six donuts.
I decided to create a form that is transformable to cater the donut carrier to the occasion of serving or the form of the surface the carrier stands on. During last iteration, I was planning to create a carrier for four donuts, but I decided that six donuts would better convey the idea that the carrier is for donuts because donuts are conventionally sold in units of half-dozens. Also, six donut cases aligned in a circular arrangement better resembles a circular shape than four donut cases do. By achieving this cyclical arrangement, I wanted to show that the carrier can resemble the shape of a round donut with a hole in the middle.
- Technical difficulties
I think I overlooked the light nature of cardboard and thought that the walls would be attached to the hexagon bases with only one connected edge. I realized that I should probably add tabs on 2 or 3 more edges of the bases to make the walls stand firmly without fluctuating irregularly. I had to use tape to fix the pieces together as an emergency bandaid because the the walls of the hexagon base would keep unfolding.
- Comments I received from peer review session:
1. The shape of the cups and the fact that there are a half dozen help to see that the carrier is for donuts.
2. It seems more involved but it is intuitive and doesn’t really require instructions or anything.
3. Yes, there is a handle on both sides which helps to know how to carry it. Maybe a stronger latch to hold the two handles together might help people to see the handles are meant to go together to be held.
4. The sides and bottoms seem to be very protected, however the top is more exposed rather than being protected. Since the cups are also hexagons, its a little difficult to see whether the donuts will fit in. It looks a little tight.
5. It feels a little constrained when putting a donut in or taking a donut out.
- My response to feedback:
I thought I would receive more constructive feedback than positive especially about the form and lack of simplicity in my carrier. I agree with the comments regarding the sturdiness of the handle and tightness of each donut case. I was hoping to receive feedback on the transformative aspect of the carrier, so I might ask my peers about that later.
- What I will do onwards:
- I will keep the half dozen donut cases and the overall round (hexagon) shape to ensure the sense of intuitive recognition of a donut carrier.
- From my group’s discussion of the cupcake carriers, I began thinking about the limitations of the carriers that forces the user to compromise their action or behavior while engaging with the carrier. I was wondering if this limitation was created intentionally to target a specific audience, and I will begin thinking about my carrier in this lense.
- I want to be able to find how my carrier’s limitation affects the user’s behavior and if that is what I am willing to provide as part of the carrier’s function.
- In addition, I need to keep practicing cutting the cardboards in a clean and sharp way so that when I create tabs, they would fit precisely.
October 13th — Day 7
- Refining form
I finalized on the design of my carrier from my most recent prototype, to to provide closed space for individual donuts and to have a transformable function so that the carrier can change shapes based on the surface it is placed on, such as hexagon and linear.
I rounded the two corners of each donut modules to keep my carrier from being to cubic and angular, which do not resemble the round characteristics of donuts. I added a peak hole on the lid of the module to allow for the viewer to see what type of donut is inside the module and also to emphasize that the carrier is for donuts by mimicking the form of round hole donuts.
- Assembly: Although the assembly itself is not a complicated process aside from the fact that there are too many cardboard pieces, it took 3–4 minutes for me to fully assemble all pieces. This was mainly due to the tabs not working well and keep disassembling, but this long amount of time I needed to assemble my carrier taught me that I had far too many tabs and pieces.
I demonstrated how the 2x3 arrangement of my carrier can change into linear and circular display. Although the movement was achieved, the individual modules were too unstable.
- Improving craftmanship through technical improvement
When I view my peer’s work, there are a lot of pieces that are very competent in terms of technicality. I think my current prototype that has too many pieces of cardboard hinders me from achieving a sleek and clean product.
- Physical features of the cardboard taken into consideration
Before, I didn’t give much thought to the thickness of the cardboard or how that affects the amount of space the cardboard needs when folded, so my prototypes did not function as intended many of the times. Also, when folding and bending, I only considered making linear creases in the folding area which led to the skin of the bended cardboard ripping and creasing. From my breakout session, I noticed that one of my peers tried removing one side of the skin to make bending more easily, achieving an evenly round angle. Implementing this technique allowed me to achieve roundness easily.
- Change from hexagon to rounded squares
Initially, I thought that using a shape that resembles the circular shape of the donut would hint at what the carrier holds from just looking at the form. Recently I explored a new shape that is closer to a circle than a square — a hexagon — but I realized that the multiangular aspect of the hexagon did not capture the roundness of the donut from the peer review session. Because making completely circular base shapes hindered me from making a holder that is sufficiently sturdy.
- Number of pieces — assembly
In the beginning of this project, I was envisioning a modulized carrier where the pieces can be put together and taken apart like puzzle, so that the user can take the donuts in their cases. However, as I shifted my focus to the transformative aspect, this modularity was kind of ignored and became unnecessary. I still have too many pieces of cardboard, which I should reduce by changing my design.
October 20, 2020 — Day 8 (Final)
After the last peer review session, I contemplated a lot on whether I should keep the transformative aspect of my carrier as it seemed to have made my carrier more fragile. While I discussed these struggles with my peers, I received a lot of feedback that if the stability of the carrier has to be compromised, then sacrificing that to achieve a less foundational function (ability to move) would be unnecessary.
However, as the transformative feature was my main unique point of my carrier from the beginning of my brainstorming sessions, it felt very hard for me to let go of that feature completely. The last few days of creating the final carrier, I worked mostly on creating using no more than three pieces of cardboard and still enable the transformable nature of my carrier.
One thing I realized during this session:
- The carrier’s function of carrying and serving are distinct, and the characteristics of a holder do not have exist for when the object is being served and vice versa.
- I spent too much time trying to keep the walls of the carrier at all times, but I realized the walls are only needed when holding and carrying the container around. When transforming the carrier to serve the objects in various shapes, the carrier is simply a plate and do not need walls anymore.
- General sketch of final design: I decided that the lid of the carrier should also perform as walls to protect the donuts during carriage, because neither the top lid and the walls is needed when serving the donuts on a tray.
Initially, I was going to make the sliding lid with only one piece of cardboard, but the it was way too challenging to simultaneously slide all three tabs (one on the top and two on the bottom base) across 24 inches of distance because the cardboard kept on shifting. Repeating this process struggling to slide the lid would cause friction and damage the tabs. To resolve this, I split the lid into two halves so that each lid would slide from either directions to join in the middle.
Instead of using surface to create the side walls, I adopted the idea of cutout bent walls from Shaoting’s apple carrier and applied that to my carrier. This helped me reduce a lot of cardboard surface area and also allowed for a light weight design.
The main feature of my carrier — transforming arrangements — is shown above. Given the context that donut is a social food, rearranging the carrier so that it can be served in a circular display indicates an occasion where multiple people are gathered to share the donut. The empty hexagon space created in the middle can be used as a placeholder for beverage pitchers, etc. This hexagon transformation also resembles the shape of a regular donut, which shows that the form strives to communicate the object the carrier is holding.
The shape of the handle also resembles the roundness of donuts and insinuates at the three donuts that line up on each side of the carrier. The smooth transitions between the three circles allow for the user to hold the carrier more comfortably without slipping.
Notes from final reflection regarding the criteria for a succesful carrier
Reflection:
Looking back at my initial designs, I noticed that my definition of carrier shifted from a more materialistic and efficient container to an object that considers user experience. Being a novice in product design and physical crafting, I struggled to translate my thoughts onto the cardboard for a while. However, these errors and mistakes helped me learn to consider the thickness of cardboards and their tensions, the direction of the corrugation, etc. Becoming more familiar to the material naturally helped me to improve my craftmanship. Towards the end of the unit, I was able consider more of the object’s interaction with the carrier and the users’ experience (convenience, enjoyment, etc.) while engaging with the carrier.
