Tilt | Aileen Kassing

Tilt
creating a new brand language &
reinventing the tea making process

Project

MFA Advanced Product Design | Umeå Institute of Design | 2016 | 10 weeks project (3 weeks groupwork with Ahsen Gülsen, Thomas Helmer and Anders Sandström, 2 weeks groupwork with Anders Sandström, 5 weeks individual) | in collaboration with Robert Bosch GmbH

Challenge

This project consisted of two major parts:
Inititally, we were asked to create a new, modern and consistent visual brand language for our collaboration partner Robert Bosch GmbH in groupwork.

Afterwards, we worked on a wildcard project, in my case tea preparation. The core of this 5-weeks task was to show a visionary product for the brand and apply the brand language rather than a designing a fully working product.

Result

Anders Sandström and me identified opportunities to give the brand a threedimensional, visual appearance with elements that are connecting the different product segments of the Brand Bosch.

Afterwards, I designed a product called Tilt. Tilt merges the heritage of tea making with modern technology and thereby provides you a perfect cup of tea. Like tea ceremonies, Tilt allows you to consciously perform one step at a time.
Using haptic digital interfaces rather than displays shows my vision on interaction in future.

How can the tradition of tea making be merged with technology in order to create a product that makes it possible for the user to archieve a perfect result with limited knowledge?

Result
Tilt - the wildcard project

How Tilt works

1. Preparation

Fill water into the bowl and tea leaves into the tea leaves container.

2. Set up the tea containers

You can have multiple tea containers to store your tea. On each container you can set up the right time and temperature for the tea.
The information is transferred to the tea bowl via a small haptic mark that can be read by the filter.

3. Insert the tea container into the filter

Now the smart filter is in charge: It makes sure that the right amount of tea falls through the double bottom of the tea container and into the filter.
It sends signals to the heating plate to start heat up the water to the perfect temperature.

4. Lean back...

...and relax. The device will control the steeping time for you and light up when your tea is done.

5. Pour yourself a perfect cup of tea

Tilt the bowl and pour it from the stand or hold the bowl in your hands and pour freely.
The glass is double-walled to prevent it from being hot on the outside.
You are therefore allowed and encouraged to touch and interact with the bowl.

5. Pour yourself a perfect cup of tea

Bosch tilt consists of four components

The stand

The stand is cable-connected to an energy source. It transfers the energy to the bowl via induction.

The bowl

The bowl contains the water (or tea). Inside the bowl you can find the heating plate. The heating plate boils the water, provides the right temperature during the steeping process and keeps the tea warm once it is done. A metal stick is connecting the bowl to the filter. Hereby energy can be transferred to the electronic components in the filter-element in the top.

The filter

The filter is the only smart part of the product. It checks the amount of water as well as the temperature in order to controll the brewing process. It also opens the double-lid of the tea containers in order to let the right amount of tea fall into the filter.

The tea containers

The tea containers are designed to store your favourite teas. You can set up the time and temperature on the containers and simply plug the container with the tea you want to make into the device. The right amount of tea will automatically fall into the water through a double-lid.

Result
brand identity

Common Core

3D brand identity

A Common Core is an abstract object that reflects a visual brand language in 3D. This way, we can visualize more than just colours and graphics. The above images show our vision for the product segments professional power tools and kitchen/household. The overall shapes are different: While the power tool's shapes are more agressive, the household objects are simple, soft and rather geometrical. Moreover, the colours are different.

Anyhow, some elements tie the products together and hereby create a consistent brand language: The red line highlights the areas where people interact with the product (e.g. the grip area or the interface); the detailed use of aluminium creates an appearance of quality and value and the neutral pattern with the logo in the center highlights the brand itself.

Process
brand identity

Analyzing Bosch

Radar Chart Bosch DIY

Radar Chart Bosch Professional

Scale criteria

To analyse the brand Bosch within the professional (blue) and DIY (green) power tool product lines, we created radar charts. The product lines are judged by six aspects. This gave us the opportunity to compare Bosch green with Bosch blue as well as the power tools in general with other Bosch product lines.

1. Fascinating Products
2. Surprisingly simple
3. Aesthetic and functional
4. Quality
5. Convincing reliability
6. Tangible excellence

Visual Expression Map & Product Archetypes

Analysing the brand's current presence

A visual expression map provides the opportunity to position products on a map regarding their visual expression only. We also used it to point out where we would strategically recommend to position future Bosch products.

Moreover, we analysed the shape and visual features of the current Bosch power tools to create product archetypes.

Common Core (CC)

3D archetypes for a visual brand language

Current CC for Bosch Professional Power Tools

Based on our findings for the creation of the perceived archetypes, studies of the Bosch style guides and the role model products, we created a Common Core for the current professional power tools. A Common Core is an abstract object that reflects the visual brand language of a brand in 3D.

Future CC for Bosch Professional Power Tools

We found out that Bosch Professional power tools are not valued as much as products of their biggest competitor. Moreover the visual brand language is not consitent enough to tie all products together. Therfore we tried to integrate some elements that both create consistency and value.

Future CC for Bosch Professional Power Tools

Since is was not possible to visualize our ideas based on the old Common Core, we created a new common core with a different overall shape as well as a recognizable pattern and a more intense blue.

Future CC for Bosch Kitchen Appliances

For the upcoming wildcard project, we were free to chose any market segment. I chose the kitchen division and therefore created a common core for Bosch’s kitchen products that is related to the Common Core of the power tools. This way I created a consistency throughout different product ranges.

Process
wildcard project - tea

Important Factors for the perfect cup of tea

Competitor research vs. moodboard

Doing online market research I found out that most tea-making products are either very traditional or look like coffee machines.
My goal was to combine the technology that Bosch can provide with a cozy environment and a feeling of wellbeing, avoiding artifical or over-engineered ways of preparing tea.

Tea experiments

Testing effects to create a cozy feeling

I tested lots of different ideas on how to create a cozy atmosphere by experimenting with tea leaves, light and shadow.

Ideation workshop

New ways to prepare tea

How could tea be made in a different way, focusing on wellbeing and a perfect result instead of speed? An ideation workshop helped me to find a lot of inspiration to the most important questions.

Ideation results

Based on the workshop results I went into my individual ideation phase and sketched a lot. Multiple circles of presenting, discussing, prototyping and refining my design directions resulted in the final concept: TILT.

Model making

Non-rapid prototyping

Due to the round shapes of most of the parts of Tilt and a unexpectedly broken 3D-printer, I used the lathe a lot. Moreover I built the heating plate of aluminium because it allowed me to use the model for taking pictures and filming with real tea inside the model. (...And because I really wanted to try the metal CNC-mill.)

Final model