“A convex logo substitutes colorfully sprayed can. Naked can help to reduce air and water pollution occurred in its coloring process. It also reduces energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in recycling process. Huge amount of energy and paint required to manufacture colored cans will be saved. Instead of toxic paint, manufacturers process aluminum with a pressing machine that indicates brand identity on surface.”
Awesome. But, even better than the design and the explanation is a comment farther down the page that blows the design rationale right out of the water:
The justification for this idea is not based on production reality at all. My father, besides helping to bring the PET beverage bottle to market, is an expert at aluminum beverage can production. Therefore, I’ve learned a lot about this through him.
My comments:
“Naked can help to reduce air and water pollution occurred in its coloring process.”
Uh-huh. You know the industry uses WATER BASED paints? And the throughput on every barrel of paint used is extremely high. It’s not like guys at the can plant are dumping leftover red paint when they’re changing over to make blue Pepsi cans. Therefore, this statement is fiction.
“It also reduces energy and effort to separate toxic color paint from aluminum in recycling process.”
Um, no. The paint burns off when the aluminum is melted down for recycling. No difference at all in energy consumption. False statement.
“Huge amount of energy and paint required to manufacture colored cans will be saved. Instead of toxic paint, manufacturers process aluminum with a pressing machine that indicates brand identity on surface.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong. MORE energy is required as you not only have to have to produce a standard two piece beverage container — you then have to run it through a second machine where the can is inserted into a female mold with the identification engraved into it (an expensive and energy consuming process right there).
Then you have to drive a rubber punch into the can with a few hundred pounds of pressure. This is a slow, expensive and energy intensive process that consumes far MORE energy than simply applying a four-color litho job at a rate of 2000 cans per minute. And since the molds are made off site just like the paint is, greenhouse gases are emitted shipping the mold from the engraver to the can plant.
Overall, this process is fine if you’re selling a product at $9 a six pack, like the Heineken barrel cans — but not feasible when you’re blowing out Diet Coke at $5 a case.
I love this idea. However, I want to a case for its production based on real world knowledge instead of wishful thinking. Coming out of the design business, I just get fed up with idealistic computer jockeys spouting junk instead of using brilliant design to solve real business and societal issues.
See, that’s the thing that bugs me most about the industry that I work in. All these dumb, bullshit rationales that designers will pull out of their ass to make their work seem “smart” do nothing for me. I can smell the stench of pretense a mile away.
The commenter is right. Design is about solving real problems through creativity, NOT making something cool looking just for its own sake. That, my friends, is what art is for. The line between the two may be blurry, but they are not mutually exclusive.
the ROCKS GLASS is one of those fancy-schmancy Tumblr sites that happens to be curated by Kansas City-based creative generalist Jeremy Fuksa.
“Creative generalist” sounds like an aggrandized term. It is. But, it rolls off the tongue much easier than Designer, Developer, Writer, Broadcaster, Filmmaker, Speaker, Musician, Photographer and Attention Whore. Plus, it looks way cooler on a business card.
The author wishes to acknowledge that there are bare wires laying about. Please take care not to trip on them.
