Tag Archives: cup

Best Glass Cup Made with Recycled Glass for a Delightful Drink Every Time

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Drinking, whether it’s water, coffee, or soda, is such an essential part of human life that we usually do it on autopilot. That’s why we also take for granted the vessel we’re drinking from, not realizing how much it can affect not only the taste but also the entire experience. Materials can subtly change the flavor of the drink or even create toxins, while uninspiring designs can affect our moods without us even realizing why we feel so sour or down. More importantly, we rarely take into account how our cups and glasses can affect the health of the planet in the long run. That’s definitely a lot to take in for a single cup, but this simple yet striking glassware makes it all so simple, providing a design that’s not only beautiful on the outside but also on the inside, especially for the world we live in.

Designer: HMM (Human Made Method) Design

Click Here to Buy Now: $35

The Problem: Bland, Harmful Drinkware

Glasses, mugs, and cups are so ubiquitous that we barely give them a second look whenever we drink. But like the mess that starts to pile up on our desks or in our rooms, they actually have an effect on our minds and our moods. Drinking from a plain, uninspiring, and rough cup is a completely different experience from using a smooth, beautiful, and luxurious vessel. The latter makes every sip feel special as if enjoying fine wine even when you’re simply drinking water. It uplifts the spirit as much as it nourishes the body.

And there’s the fact that not all drinkware is made equal, even those made from metal and glass. They can have harmful chemicals mixed in that interact with the liquid inside, changing their flavors and sometimes even causing harm to our health. They also slowly kill the planet, especially the numerous plastic drinkware that fill the market and our cupboards. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel great not only because you’re drinking from a beautiful glass cup but also because you know you’re doing your small part to protect the planet? That’s the blissful drinking experience that this exquisite glass cup is offering, made from recycled glass that, in turn, is also completely recyclable.

Why is this the Best Glass Cup

This sustainable glass cup has a beauty that goes beyond just appearances. It uses glass that’s collected and recycled by Taiwan’s largest glass recycling center and the product is a material that’s also 100% recyclable glass. This means that at the end of its life, this beautiful glass cup can be properly disposed of or even recycled for some other use, creating a circular economy that keeps on giving without harming the planet in the process.

Admittedly, that invisible detail might be lost on some people, especially when they’re distracted by the cup’s beauty. Rather than just a straightforward cylindrical body, the glass’s faceted shape has 12 angles that stand for the 12 hours on a clock’s face, symbolizing the cycle of the day and of life. And instead of being clear and transparent, glass-dyeing techniques add a visual flavor to the cup whenever light passes through it and the beverage inside. Each glass is handmade by seasoned craftsmen, which sometimes results in tiny bubbles or traces on the surface of the glass. Rather than being imperfections, these give each cup a unique character and story, adding to the vessel’s charm.

Who this Glass Cup is For

With such a stylish and elegant glass, anyone can experience a more meaningful drink, regardless of their preferred beverage. With a heat-proof handle, holding a cup of your favorite coffee blend is no problem. And with its smooth circular inner surface, cleaning after a drink of wine is no sweat at all. A delight to the eyes and a treat for your lips, this Sustainable Glass Cup turns every sip into a deeper, multi-sensory experience, allowing you to savor not only the unadulterated flavors of your favored beverages but also the gratifying thoughts of supporting a circular economy that will create a brighter and greener tomorrow.

Click Here to Buy Now: $35

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Tilting water cup concept gets you to drink more water by scaring you

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We all know how important water is to our health, but simply knowing those facts doesn’t immediately translate to action. Most of us simply forgo drinking water until we feel thirsty or when it’s time to eat, even though we actually need to hydrate regularly throughout the day. It’s easy to forget to do that in during the busy day, and it’s also just as easy to snooze or skip alarms you set to remind you. You wouldn’t be so complacent, however, if your water cup or tumbler is fated to fall over unless you drink water at the right time, and that’s somewhat the kind of scare tactic that this concept device employs to try to get you to drink water more regularly.

Designers: Yuxiong Dong, Yaoxin Cai, Yongde Zhu, Kang Han

No, the cup thankfully doesn’t actually threaten to spill your water if you don’t rush to catch it, but it makes you think the tumbler will indeed tumble over if you don’t. It only tries to make you stand up and make the effort to walk to the device, presuming you put it far from your desk. The way this tilting water cup works is a mixture of simple mechanics and psychology, though some will probably have doubts about the efficacy of the latter.

The design is made up of two parts, the actual cup that holds the water and the base that does the mind trick. You simply put the cup of water on top of the base, turn the ring on the base to set the timer, and then go back to what you were doing. Once the timer runs out, an alarm presumably sounds and the surface of the base where the cup rests begins to tilt, forcing you to rush to its side and pick up the cup. And since you’re already there anyway, you might as well drink the water from it, which is the whole point of this rather odd system.

Of course, the cup won’t actually fall off since it’s magnetically attached to that base. The question is whether the contents will start spilling at that angle, so you might have to make sure not to fill it up in the first place. You might also wonder if it will be difficult to pick up the cup from the base considering it has to be held by strong magnets to prevent it from slipping when it tilts.

The biggest concern, however, will be whether the strategy actually works. It might be effective for the first few times, but once your mind has adjusted to it, it won’t be so easily tricked again. At that point, you might very well start ignoring it, too, just like those alarms and reminders, turning the titling water cup into an odd but pointless design.

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3D-Printed from food-grade silicone, Reusable is a collapsable, pocket-friendly cup you can carry anywhere

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Recycle and Reuse have become the buzzwords today. Most materials – single-use plastic excluded – are being recycled, and some plastic items such as bottles are reused to restrict them from reaching the landfills. Plastic pollution is therefore a big menace globally that designers are trying to solve with potentially innovative ideas. In that league we came across the Reusable: a collapsable, reusable cup that is made from food-grade material and fits right in your pocket so you can carry it wherever your routine takes you.

Disposable paper cups have been around for a long time now. Not essentially made with the purpose of being reused, such cups have to reach the landfills after one time use. All right, some of these to-go cups are recyclable, but some paper cups contain a plastic or wax coating – to prevent leaks – rending their unrecyclable. This is where a solution like the Reusable makes a lot of sense, not essentially because it can be recycled at the end of life, but since it can be reused a multitude of times before it can be retired from the lifecycle.

Designer: Kalina Gotseva

The brainchild of British-designed Kalina Gotseva, the Reusable has been 3D printed from durable, food-grade silicone. Made in a unique twisted design, after thousands of iterations on paper and other materials, the Reusable is made collapsable, transforming the cup from a full-sized option to a compact form factor that allows it to fit in the pocket.

Making a silicone cup with all the intricacies to make it reusable, the cup is a direct benefit product for millions of tea and coffee drinkers around the world, whose day wouldn’t start with the pipping hot beverage picked from the driveway in a throwaway one time use cup. This scenario could change with the benefit of Reusable which you can flip out of your pocket and have your drink served to you in it.

With the foldable and reusable design, the question of safety and convenience does arise in the mind. Gotseva has taken care of every detail, starting with making the entire foldable design self-contained. For that, the designer ensured that the body of the cup folds down flat and it can then fit securely in its cap to remain intact and dust-free in your pocket/bag. The protective cap is not just the Reusable’s case, in fact it has a tested push-and-pull slider on the drinking hole, which offers leak-proof convenience, so you can carry and drink your beverage safely, at your convenience.

The Reusable despite all the nifty features has sleek aesthetics paired with an ergonomic grip and three interesting color choices to pick a cup that matches your style. Created from BPA-free silicone, the cups are colored – with food-safe options – during the injection molding process. These are available in dark blue, light aquamarine, and vibrant orange colors to choose from. I don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for the Reusable to hit the market. My pick is orange, what’s yours?

The post 3D-Printed from food-grade silicone, Reusable is a collapsable, pocket-friendly cup you can carry anywhere first appeared on Yanko Design.

Odd drinking cup was designed to work in zero-gravity space without a straw

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Hollywood has romanticized the idea of living in space or on other planets, but our current technologies have yet to catch up to the future painted by science fiction. Never mind the risks of blasting off into space, living on a space station can be extremely challenging, especially in the absence of gravity. Zero-G, as it is often called, can be fun once in a while and in short bursts, but having to constantly live in that environment turns activities we consider normal and mundane into an exercise in patience. The simple act of drinking, for example, requires sipping from a straw all the time, not exactly the most comfortable method for enjoying precious Earth liquids in space. That’s the problem that this space cup solves, but it accomplishes this impressive feat by taking on a shape that is almost literally out of this world.

Designer: Donald Pettit, Mark Weislogel

It’s only logical that liquids wouldn’t stay still inside a cup without the power of gravity, which is why drinks in space are taken from pouches with straws attached to them. It’s a simple and practical solution that makes drinking feel more like a mechanical act of survival than something that is enjoyed and treasured like those on Earth. NASA researcher Mark Weislogel and NASA astronaut Donald Pettit worked together, the former on Earth, the other on the International Space Station, to come up with a design that brings back the comforting experience of drinking normally from a cup.

The secret behind this “zero gravity coffee cup” is twofold. One is the special design where the cup has sharp crevices where two edges meet. The other is the way liquid behaves when placed in such a receptacle in zero gravity. The liquid is naturally drawn to those narrow spaces following the principle of capillary channel flow and, as if by magic, actually sticks to those edges without spilling out.

Owning the title of being the first cup that was actually designed in space, this zero-gravity drinkware’s first form was actually just a sheet of Mylar taped together at the edges to form a teardrop-shaped container. Of course, such a design hardly counts as a comfortable cup to drink from, so a more refined 3D printed food-grade plastic cup was made on Earth. Another model, this time made from ceramic, was later developed and became the first patented product invented outside of our planet.

The space cup’s unusual shape has raised a few eyebrows, and while it’s now available for sale on Earth from some sources, it doesn’t have the same magical capabilities demonstrated in zero-gravity space. Its alien design, however, does show how outside-the-box thinking will be necessary to have more “normal” experiences in space, and we have to expect that the first generation of what we consider to be ordinary products will take on sometimes unusual forms just so they can function in the same way.

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Space-inspired everyday products prepare us for a zero-gravity future

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Many people these days dream about living on other planets or at least inside orbiting space stations, but few actually consider how very different life would be outside the Earth’s gravity. Of course, Hollywood tends to romanticize a lot of everyday life, but as astronauts will testify, living in space, even if just to reach the Moon or Mars, is no walk in the park. Even the simplest activities like drinking water can be awkward and disorienting in zero-g, at least if you consider using Earth-bound objects to do so. That’s why this trio of designs tries to reimagine some of the most mundane products we use in daily life and transform them into objects that are ready for our space-faring future.

Designers: Subin Kim, Jagyeong Baek, Jaeyeon Lee

Most of us understand that without gravity, things tend not to stay down, but few actually envision the ramifications of that fact. Products designed on Earth naturally presume an amount of stability, and the way they are handled or controlled is limited in the same manner. For example, a lot of everyday things only have handles on one side or work in a single direction, a presumption that doesn’t make much sense or even becomes counterproductive when the objects are floating in space.

Spatio is a collection of these everyday objects that have been redesigned with zero gravity in mind. Or to put it more simply, it doesn’t make presumptions on where and how it will function, making it work both on Earth, on Mars, or in the International Space Station. Aqua, for example, is a water bottle that replaces a traditional cup that has a single handle on one side only. In contrast, this bottle has four extrusions in cardinal directions that act as handles and a cover that lets you drink by sucking rather than sipping from the lip of a mug.

Sonus is a wireless speaker that really defies the traditional design of speakers. Inspired by the moon’s spherical shape, each of the “craters” on its surface pops up a tiny omnidirectional speaker when pressed. The more units that pop out, the louder it gets, acting is an unconventional form of volume control. The important difference is that you don’t have to shift or move the speaker to one side or the other just to reach those controls.

And then there’s Lumia, a star-shaped flashlight that can shine in any direction. Simply turning the central wheel switches the direction of the light so that it works regardless of how you’re holding it. While these products were designed with space living in mind, it’s not difficult to imagine them working just as well on Terra Firma, proving that truly accessible design benefits everyone everywhere, even if they’re living in outer space.

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