The assignment was to transform a plain object, that is often overlooked, into something more intriguing.

I chose to redesign the look of plain and unbranded coffee cups.

Firstly, I researched the way different coffee beans and caffeine look under the microscope. Afterwards, using programming software I generated designs that mimic the structure patterns of coffee and caffeine. I created black and white designs for the cups after the structure of coffee beans and colored designs for the sleeves after the structure of caffeine.

To give the whole concept an element of surprise, I painted the colored sleeves with black thermochromic paint that becomes invisible when coffee or any other hot liquid is poured into the cups.

The cups are a physical representation of how coffee works. You get a cup, you see it, but you don't assign much value to it. After the coffee is poured, the sleeve becomes colored and interesting and you see the cup with new eyes. Therefore, an object that was overlooked and taken for granted now becomes something that demands to be looked at.