Tiffin Box is a lunchbox. Possibly the best expression of a lunchbox I know. It’s made from stainless steel and is made of eighteen components (which seems like it could be less). It has roughly the circumference of a CD and stands about eight inches tall. It has some of the best proportions I’ve seen in a product and as a result it is a delightful thing to both use and look at. So why am I talking about a lunchbox? Why does such a mundane thing occupy my thoughts? And why do I believe it should occupy yours?

Well I’ll start by mentioning the fact that the lunchbox is a design problem that has troubled designers for a very long time. I could say that it has troubled designers for millennia. The act of preserving and carrying food has been something that humans have all ways had an interest in for very good reason. The long journey that a piece of perishable food has from being grown to being eaten is constantly being lengthened and the last part of some foods journey is often to the office or school canteen. And what a sad ending for some of this food, cling filmed within an inch of its life and tin foil wrapped and given an unloving shove into the bottom of a school bag or briefcase.

Often crammed into a nasty semi transparent plastic box, food doesn’t stand a chance. I think that lunchboxes deserve as much attention in the designing of them as crockery in high class restaurants. Why does our lunch at work never get the respect it deserves?

I’ve been talking recently about function and the differences in what the word means when we consider products. The lunchbox can be a delightful mix of the functional and the emotional. Consider your early years and having bright colourful containers to take your lunch to school in. I had a Transformers lunchbox with matching Thermos flask for my drink/soup. I actually loved that lunchbox and couldn’t wait to eat the food my mum had made me. It was part of me and I miss it. I think we have lost that kind joy for food in the workplace and are underestimating its importance. After that I think I was deemed too old for novelty lunch-ware and I was given a plastic Tupperware type of affair. I remember now that throughout my secondary education (ages 12-19) I bet I only ate one of my packed lunches a week. The other four per week went to my friends. (Sorry Mum!)

Looking back I think I was so uninspired by how my lunch was presented to me that I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. Nothing wrong with the food, absolutely fine, healthy and nutritious but the box made my food sweat and go soft. There is something slightly disturbing about eating sandwiches that are just above room temperature. It’s interesting to consider the impact that such a pedestrian product can have on your mood and your health.

Now getting back to the Tiffin. I ate out of this device for my first five or six months in India when we used to have lunch delivered by the school. It was great. Not only did I enjoy the act of eating from Tiffin’s but there was also the added surprise of not knowing what I was getting. It was the occasion of the thing that really made me fall for the Tiffin and its inherent practicality. The idea that you can have home cooked food for lunch which can include sweet and savoury food, that don’t get mixed into each other is a real draw. It took me back to my youth and I love the Tiffin for that.

But it should also be praised as a solid solution for peoples lunching needs. It’s one of those products that you can’t really see any improvement being made on it. It’s a pretty perfect version of what a lunchbox should be. The Tiffin is, in my opinion, the ultimate lunchbox in concept and in execution. It’s interesting to think that we are willing to spend inordinate amounts of money on fancy picnic equipment, barbeque grills and plates and crockery for the home; so why don’t we give the same attention to our lunches and the boxes they come in?

I’m off to enjoy my lunch!

Next time, match boxes.

About the author: Alan Manley is a product designer and design researcher based in the UK. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   

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‘Nothing restricts our ability to innovate more than what we already know, and what we therefore believe not to be possible’ (Geoff Mulgan, founder of think tank Demos)

What is innovation?

Innovation is all about doing things differently, exploiting new ideas and taking risks. It enables businesses to bring new and improved products or services to market, re-energise brands, refine processes and, most importantly, improve profitability.

Innovation should be an on-going process that’s embedded in the company culture at all levels. It’s a team process that thrives when passionate people are encouraged to create ideas that challenge the status quo.

Everything starts from an idea, and the best way to find that magical innovation is to generate a lot of proposals. Success comes from filtering those ideas, identifying ones that the business will focus on and applying resources to exploit them effectively.

Why does innovation matter?

Forward thinking companies see innovation as the fuel for long term business growth. When placed at the heart of an organisation, it adds value to products and services, stimulates sales growth, and exploits new markets.

The innovation process always brings a sense of renewal. Teams and businesses are invigorated from within, and find themselves seeking new trends or ideas that will propel them into the next cycle of innovation and creativity.

What’s design-led innovation?

Design can effectively initiate and manage innovation in products, services, brand communications and processes - and there’s strong evidence that design-led innovation makes good business sense.

A designer’s role is to challenge, experiment, expand boundaries and explore new and different ways of doing things. They are abundant with fresh ideas, and use creative thinking to view problems from a different perspective.

Involving a designer in your company or team is a smart move, but they shouldn’t be left to innovate alone. Success comes from a diverse team of people, perhaps inspired and guided by the designer to help them innovate more effectively.

How do we encourage innovation?

Innovation is not necessarily about spending more money or following a rigid process. It’s fundamentally about changing company attitudes and structures, and allowing a creative culture to develop and light the path ahead.

An organisation must be fertile for the seeds of ideas and solutions to grow. An inclusive environment that is empowering, flexible, welcomes ideas, tolerates risk, celebrates success, fosters synergy and encourages fun is crucial.

Creating this kind of climate is the biggest challenge facing companies wanting to be more innovative. It needs leadership from the top, but participation by all. Here are some essential steps that will help promote the innovative spirit:

·       Commission some market research to better understand the changing needs of your customers, industry trends and what your rivals are doing. It could reveal new opportunities, and it will give you the evidence around which to focus your efforts.

·       Make sure you have processes and events to capture ideas. For example you could setup suggestion boxes around the workplace, hold regular brainstorming workshops or even plan company outings to stimulate new thinking.

·       Create a supportive atmosphere in which everyone can freely express their ideas without the risk of criticism or ridicule. Often there’s something good hidden inside those silly or bold suggestions!

·       Encourage risk taking and experimentation, and certainly don’t penalise those who try new ideas that fail. Exploration is nothing without perseverance.

·       Promote openness between individuals and teams. Good ideas and knowledge in one part of your business should be shared with others. Teamworking, newsletters and intranets can all help your people share information and build an ideas culture.

·       Stress that people at all levels of the business share responsibility for innovation, so everyone feels involved in taking the business forward. The fewer the layers of management or decision making in your organisation, the more people feel their ideas matter.

·       Reward innovation and celebrate success. Appropriate incentives can play a role in encouraging staff to think creatively, and to keep them engaged.

·       Look for imagination and creativity when recruiting new employees. Innovative thinkers are not just those with impressive qualifications, and often employees new to your industry can bring a totally fresh approach to the way you do things.

·       Form a consortium or discussion group with other companies or bodies. Collaboration can bring huge benefits in terms of shared resources, spreading risk and utilising knowledge that is not available in-house.

·       Involve a designer in your project team, or even invite one to become a non-executive director in the company. Professional product and graphic designers are trained to challenge assumptions and traditions, and can rapidly enhance your innovative capability.

·       Try to develop and secure some intellectual property from your efforts. Patents, registered designs and trade marks add value to your ideas, and can protect against competitors who chose to innovate by copying.

·       Organisations do not become more innovative over night. Commitment and patience is required from everyone during the innovative journey, especially if outcomes do not match initial expectations.

Examples of successful design-led innovation

These short case studies deliberately focus on particular designer-business relationships, as it’s essential to understand that the key to success is to put design and innovation at the core of company strategy.

Category: Product and brand innovation
Project: Swatch watches
Client: Swatch
Year: Early 1980s to present day 

Swatch is an example of what design combined with an innovative concept can achieve. The Swiss watch making industry was very weak in the early 1980s, faced with competition from Japanese digital watches. Swatch's revolutionary business concept reversed the decline by redefining the watch market. It transformed a watch from a time measuring instrument into a fashion statement and a collector's item.

Nicholas G Hayek, the consultant who had been brought in to wind down the Swiss watch making industry had the idea of marrying Swiss watch making skills with Italian fashion design. To add to the mix he borrowed plastic engineering skills from Lego to produce watches that were dramatically different from the feature laden watches offered by the Japanese.

As a consequence, people started collecting these relatively cheap watches - choosing a different one, depending on their mood and the occasion. Design and innovation here not only led to the successful establishment of a new company, but to the turnaround for an entire industry.

Category: Product innovation
Project: Quattro
Client: Black & Decker
Year: 1998

Black and Decker realised that there might be a market for a multi-purpose tool. So the company decided to develop a tool that would allow four different operations: sanding, sawing, drilling and screwing.

After an initial design was developed externally, the project champion felt that the concept offered far greater degrees of innovation and differentiation than realised by the initial design and gave it to an in-house designer for review. In-depth understanding of Black and Decker's vision and ambition combined with a passion for improving ease of use and user comfort resulted in a distinctive, innovative design that took the market by storm. When the product was introduced in late 1998 demand was far higher than anticipated.

Instead of starting from the existing design of battery operated tools, the young designer questioned what had been taken as a given and, by doing so, was able to create a superior design in terms of the function and visual appeal. Here, design and innovation have been used to create a new product category.

Category: Product and brand innovation
Project: iMac G4
Client: Apple Computers
Year: 2003

After Apple's initial success with introducing the Mac in 1984, the company had become complacent. In the mid/late 1990s it became clear that something drastic had to happen if the company was to survive. Remembering its roots - user friendliness and imaginative design - Apple hired Jonathan Ive, a young British product designer.

Ive turned the boring, uninspiring grey box that housed the average personal computer into the iMac, launched in 1998. With this example of the benefits of innovation and design, Apple continued to stretch the boundaries of computer design. In early 2003 the company launched it’s most innovative and imaginative computer yet. The iMac G4 features a 15" or 17" LCD screen and a hard drive that’s hidden in the hemispherical base that supports the screen. Here design and innovation were used to revitalise a brand, give it back its credibility, and effectively save a company.

About the author

This article has been written and compiled by Matthew Link – Managing Director of PER Design (UK) Ltd. Supporting material was kindly supplied by the Design Council (www.designcouncil.org.uk), Business Link (www.businesslink.gov.uk) and Innovation Network (www.thinksmart.com). All owner’s rights and marks are duly acknowledged. 

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If a product could illustrate the funny side of design better than this red monkey, I would like to see it. This, as you can or maybe cannot see, is a red wind-up monkey. I bought this object in Bangalore at a market toy shop with a plethora of other neon coloured animals, cars and toy soldiers. It was the monkey that stood out and I had to buy it. I’d invite you to just take a second and just look at it. Firstly look at its expression, slightly constipated. Now, its tremendously realistic fur covering; amazing. The monkey has no relevance for me in terms of India, but it has cemented its place on my mantle piece in my bedroom. Why? Because it’s a product that contains real humour. A humour that is not intended by the manufacturer but one which is posited on it by my own understandings of what a monkey looks like and the all together different proposal of what a monkey looks like, put forward by this toy.

This opens up an interesting point about the function of a product which I mentioned in my last article (Tribal Mask). The use of humour within products has been taken advantage of by a number of product designers with varying degrees of success. Companies like Alessi have produced a number of products that use characters in their product semantics to create a relationship with a product and ultimately put a smile on the user's face. Product designers/artists Dunne and Raby use products to highlight the more amusing sides of human behaviour. Both have great value when looking at product design; more importantly when rationalizing why products should be made in a climate where the creation of new objects is often criticized for reasons of sustainability. The emotion that you feel for products like this makes them last and people are more likely to keep them if the object makes them laugh, cry or reminisce.

The negative aspect of these types of products is that they are often priced much higher than they should be. Design shouldn’t be an excuse for higher profit margins. It should be an excuse for longer lasting and more meaningful products. But can these types of emotions and interactions be designed into a product? This is a tough question and recalls my previous research into the kind of objects that people collect/keep during their lifetime. The data from the study found that the objects were often of low value monetarily and were what could be considered waste in a lot of cases. Some objects were of great value and things like jewellery obviously had high value emotionally and economically. But looking at the cheap end of the spectrum they were rarely objects in their own right; they were often pieces of packaging, disposable items and objects that had fulfilled their utilitarian origins and now become a different object all together. The last example really interests me as a designer. Products and objects can morph and have a transitional quality that other outputs such as art and music don’t possess in such abundance.

So, can this phenomen or quality be designed into a product?

This is a challenge for any product designer and one that has fueled my interest in product design as a discipline for the last five years and I think it still will for many years to come. There are a number of design writers and researchers that have touched on this topic of tangible memories and objects forming a person’s sense of self but it is rarely tackled from a producer’s point of view. There are rarely makers of objects like this and if there are they are restricted to conceptual works which rarely, if ever, see a wider audience than that of design academics.

Next week I’ll be looking at possibly the best lunchbox ever!

About the author: Alan Manley is a product designer and design researcher based in the UK. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

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