What is food design?

I want to know what food design means. Not only making the food look pretty on a plate, but everything around it. With industrial design skills in my mind, I want to understand the user experience of food and everything related to food.

So first, let’s define: food design

If you look at food from an industrial designer’s perspective, you have:

  1. The food (sort of a product)
  2. The eater (user)
  3. The place to eat (context)
  4. Cutleries (tools for eating)

1. The Food

Food is a special product, because you can eat it! And then it’s gone. So you can only ‘use’ it once.

Then there was someone who made the food:
The chef (user)
In the kitchen (context)
With knives and pans (tools)

The result is food, which is the final product for the chef.

When the food is made it can also be packed and sold in a supermarket or store. Then you get package design and branding.

2. The eater

The eater uses all his senses to experience the food. Past experiences of eating will also define his new eating experiences. Whether he likes or dislikes something. Or maybe the food is not healthy and the eater feels guilty.

3. The place to eat

The location of eating influences the food experiences a lot. The atmosphere, the style, the food, the service and more, create a whole eating experience. I find it fascinating to analyze how restaurants do their thing. What their menu looks like, the interior design, products they use etc. In my opinion a restaurant of cafe can be the ultimate place to enjoy and relax with friends and family. Something which I think is what makes people happy. At least me.

4. Cutleries

Tools and objects that are used for eating also create the eating experience. I also want to add here the rituals of eating. How you behave with the tools during eating.

I will use these subjects as starting points to understand food design better. Every subject will be researched more in-depth to create a full story about food design. Hopefully I will work actively on this, or else my blog will be abandoned again for a long time… and I might change my mind again about the goal of this blog.

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