Eco-Coke Bottle

Andrew Kim is obsessed with consumer electronics. He was delighted to discover that there was a profession for people for him. I got on the phone with Andrew and we chatted a bit about the very awesome re-design he did on the classic coke bottle. Design Fabulous is Andrew Kim’s design blog. He’s a student at College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

What prompted this design?

Mid-term project: “Design a product that is eco-friendly.” I wanted to use empty coke bottles for insulation but then decided I wanted a real solution instead of a band-aid.

What was your inspiration?

MacBook Pro as inspiration: The battery fits into the laptop like no other laptop. Bottles should fit in trucks too! It was only logical to make the bottle crush-able to conserve space.

Andrew Kim was born in Korea and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. He’s only a freshman at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit but clearly he’s got a bright future ahead of him. His dream job is to work for a cell phone company like HTC.

Cool.

So far he’s been contacted by the head of design at Coke and by CNN. He was surprised about the attention that the project got because it was one of the quickest projects that he’s done. He only spent 4 weeks on the project and he finished it up over his spring break.

Even though Andrew doesn’t drink coke, because it’s not a big influence back home (oops Coke – looks like you missed Korea…and maybe Canada), he picked Coke because there is so much emotion attached the brand.

Most of the design was done in Photoshop but it’s still really well done. Surprisingly, Andrew has been getting a lot of negative feedback (and a lot of positive feedback) from folks. Reading through these comments, I think that some people really missed Andrew’s vision and got really caught up in details.

And to address 80% of silly criticism: yes, they fit well in cup holders in cars and they’re actually easier to hold than cylindrical bottles.

Andrew is thinking about doing a second version but he’s also has another project on the line. His next project will focus on nutrition and hardware that would supply vitamins with an interface on a smart phone. He’s thinking from scratch about the whole experience.

Best of luck Andrew and thanks for the interview!