A COFFEE PRESS TO SUIT TONFISK DESIGN’S WARM TEA AND COFFEE SERIES : Designing within an Existing Product Family

Abstract

This thesis work describes the design process of making a product concept to Tonfisk Design’s WARM tea and coffee series. A coffee press was designed by studying how to design within existing product family. The design process itself dealt with ergonomics, production, and materials. The coffee press as a subject needed references to coffee culture, brewing techniques, and its history.

The aim was to design a coffee press to suit Tonfisk Design’s WARM tea and coffee series, which finally will be introduced to Tonfisk Design’s product range in 2016. The designer’s goal was to take this as a great opportunity and experience to create and study something new. The second goal was to produce new knowledge and skills.

The research setting was action research. Therefore, the developing process was done in cooperation with the client. In addition to action research, product semiotics was used as a viewpoint in the thesis. Product semiotics examines brand identity and representatives of a product range. The product family design reuse methodology, functioned as a connection between the other two research methods. The method helped to determine a consistent framework, and also to find out the design patterns and the essential commonality within the product family.