Some lettering specimens from the signage used at the farmer’s market

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The project that we have defined for ourselves is to develop a system that helps people learn about food. In the process, I have been learning a great deal about food myself. In order to research the value of knowing where food comes from, I joined a Community Supported Agriculture coop. The pictures below are of the first box received through the system. The box is ordered online and a drop-off location is selected at the time of purchase. Each drop-off location has a different day/time specific to that location. You do not get to choose what is in the box. Each box is (essentially) the same for that week.

What was interesting about this endeavor is how much produce the box contained that I would have never bought on my own. Once I had the box, it was very exciting to look up each new food item and find ways in which these new vegetables and greens could be used in cooking.

This lead us to start thinking about ways in which we could interrupt people’s normal progression with new ideas of things for them to cook with and eat.

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Distance Display

This idea of the distance a food has traveled is good but we’ve quickly realized that knowing this once you are in the kitchen is not very valuable since you’ve already bought it and brought it home. It needs to happen earlier in the process, before a purchase has been made.

Farm Coop with Dynamic Recipe Options

The idea here is that initial pink block knows what is in your bag from the farm coop. Once placed on the counter, recipes would be displayed and filtered based on what items from the bag are selected by placing them near the block.

We liked this idea of a system in which recipes are presented based on what you have available. However, as evidenced by my small apartment counter top, counter space is incredibly valuable during cooking. Updated displays need to exist as a different model that remains flexible and reactive to the cooking process.