Young designer Dohyuk Kwon encountered the same problem we all have before: He was enjoying a package of Pringles potato crisps until, suddenly, he found the chip level had sunk to a critical expletive-laden stage just below the reach of his fingers. “So I sketched a more convenient package of chips,” he tells Co.Design.
His concept is called Bloom Chips, and it won a Red Dot Award for its obvious brilliance: Bloom Chips is a wrinkled cylinder that unfurls to create its own bowl. “Its mechanism is more complex than it looks,” says Kwon. “Simply speaking, it’s like a blooming flower.” The idea is so instantly impressive that it’s impossible to imagine why no one at Procter & Gamble thought of it first.
Though, there is some precedent in the world of self-contained snacking: The design reminds me a bit of Jiffy Pop, which uses a similar, expandable packaging to make its own container. “I didn’t know Jiffy Pop until a few minutes ago,” responds Kwon. “It’s very, very interesting. I guess once there was a man who complained about existing popcorn package, so he made the package for Jiffy Pop.”
(Interestingly enough, Jiffy Pop really was the project of one man! Frederick C. Mennen, a chemist and inventor from LaPorte, Indiana, developed the product in 1958. But actually, another man invented Jiffy Pop first. An identical predecessor was called E-Z Pop, developed by a Michigan-native named Benjamin Coleman. Coleman sued for patent infringement in the 1960s, but the case was turned over in appeal.)
Bloom Chips will likely never convince Pringles to change their cans, but that’s okay. For one thing, we really don’t need to be enticed into eating a whole package of chips every time we pop open a new can. But more importantly, pouring those unreachable Pringles crumbs straight from the can into one’s mouth is one of the simplest, most wonderful pleasures in life. And really, it’s a delicious byproduct of design gone wrong.
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