Food Design

Food Design is an emerging discipline, so young that its meaning is too often misinterpreted. Food Design is a discipline that developed in the last decade. Recently it developed quite quickly in Italy, thanks to the Salone Internazionale del Mobile (international furniture exhibition in Milan), and to the effort and interest of universities as the Polytechnics of Turin and Milan, the ADI Associazione per il Disegno Industriale (association for the industrial design) and the OneOff Studio, with the Food Design® competition.

Food Design bases its rules on the application of norms deriving from visual arts, cooking knowledge, Graphic Design, Product Design and multisensory research. All of this is concentrated with the only aim to reach an aesthetic expression able to create an aesthetic experience.

The technological research linked to Design and to the shape of some products, guaranteed the fortune of Food Design: from the traditional Swiss chocolate Toblerone, whose architecture invites a particular gesture to break the pieces; to the more recent Pringles, a chemical-physical-morphological device where the chip is designed in an ergonomic shape that perfectly lies on the tongue, releasing its flavour and enhancing the tasting experience. These chips are designed not only to create a strong flavour experience, but also to let it last as long as possible. This is the reason for their shape that perfectly fits in the mouth, but also for the smart packaging that preserves the ‘whole chip’ shape.

The problem with the term Food Design, is that right now it encompasses too many different kinds of product. These products are so different from each other, in terms of methodology, concepts and materials that, with a thorough analysis, seem impossible to be categorized in same term. That is why this term became confusing, and used inthe wrong circumstances. The term Food Design implies many different categories of products because this discipline is approached by many different categories of professionals.

To better understand the meaning of the concept Food Design, see the page Subcategories where a possible sub-categorization of the concept Food Design is listed. This Sub-categories group together products deriving from the same design methodologies and belonging to the same categories of products.