Speculative Futures Week 2: Idea Development

Idea Development

It is week 2 of this brief and I think I have a pretty good idea that I would like to develop upon, Instead of continuing with my what if scenario of what if we had a technological recession. I have decided to return to an idea that I originally had for my genealogies project, the idea is what if our meals and food like sustenance in the near future were minimised down to a pill form. With this idea, I could create my own food brand of these pop out capsule tablets that represent a meal. I could create advertisements that focus on the convenience of it, such as 'Why slave in the kitchen all day when you can have the perfect roast dinner in seconds', perhaps create advertisements of a family sat around the dinner table enjoying a family meal but with these pills instead. I could create gourmet pill 'meals', photographing these elaborately plated dishes that you would see in high class restaurants and epicurean cuisine. 

This was a photograph I took for the research stage of my genealogies project, this could be how these pill meals are advertised 

I could create a photoshoot of these elaborate foods but instead of the food it's a pill in the middle.

Now the concept of food supplements being minimised like this has been around since the early 1960s, there was a company called Metrecal which was a brand of diet foods that originally came as a powder based supplement that when mixed with water it makes a milkshake like substance. The product either came as self-prepare shakes or portion control cans and they were vile. Many dieters and consumers would add liquor to improve the taste of them because them more palatable. I love the magazine advertisement for it below, I thought the photographer deciding to shoot the product as a complete meal because it's supposed to be one is a really cool idea. And advertisement like this is something that I would like to incorporate into my idea for this project. 

Below is a mood board that I put together for this idea. This concept of pills representing food such as a bowl of pills instead of cereal is rather popular however, this means I have to come up with something a bit more different which is why is why I believe creating a brand/food line for this project could be a great way forward. If I were to create a food line or a brand for these pills, what I need to take into consideration is how the packaging would look, how I could advertise the brand and what style I could design with it. 



An idea for the packaging and stye could be a minimal and futuristic approach such as the examples found in the mood board. Another idea was inspired by existing medicinal products and equipment, seeing that pills are a medication I could do a medical themed brand or food line. The packaging could be similar to blood bags with bold red and black text, bar codes and instructions of use. Another idea are pill caddies an item designed to contain and dispense tablets and pills in order through out the week. I could create something similar but instead of Sunday - Saturday, it could be types of meals or foods.

I think this will be a rather project to work with and In the next blog post I will be having a go at designing some concepts and looking at some inspirations for this.