Coffee cup designs and fun times

There have been new developments at Designerart of late!

We have designed and developed a couple of things for a new venture called DaS (Designerart Studio). We have been making desktop and wall clocks, pillow designs and are now in the process of creating moulds to slip cast coffee cups.

We are not exactly very skilled in the art of pottery so we have decided to work with the skill set that we have, namely the mould making. Typically the cups would be done on a wheel, Demi Moore style; but we have neither the wheel nor the training. We are keen on gaining these in future, but patience isn’t one of our strong suits in the quest for adventure or creation, and so Riaan came up with a pretty wise alternative!

We got some wood and a turning table, all available materials and basic skills ready to go, and this is what we came up with

Our very first wood turned prototype. This prototype was turned out of a Jacaranda log that we had lying around.

The final two profiles for our coffee mugs.

We will begin with two cup designs, but a turning table is just simply such lovely work to do and we’re just getting into it. Who knew designing cups could be so satisfying! Anyway it’ll be one short and one tall cup. 

We were doing some research on the effectiveness of coffee cups. The shape of our short cup is not simply beautiful but also the ideal shape to keep the coffee warmer for longer and to give the ultimate taste experience. Based on our research we have found that spherically shaped cups have the smallest surface area for minimal heat release to take place, keeping the coffee nice and hot, for longer. 

The lip of the mug plays a role in the taste of the coffee. Different lips also allows different amounts of air into the coffee that plays a role in the flavour. Apart from our technical approach we've analyzed various mugs, questioned friends and family members about their preferences and ultimately came up with these two designs. 

We are very excited about these cups. The next step is to create a plaster mould for the slip casting. Oh and we also need the handles for the cups still. Once the slip casting is done there will also be more designing and refining involved. So we will have more to show you soon! Hopefully very soon! We are having the clay made presently.

Till next time...