The Quirky Design Staff explains the inspiration behind Waffler, Quirky’s 49th collaboratively-developed product.
Available for pre-sale on Quirky.com for just $68: http://www.quirky.com/products/49. Get ‘em while they’re hot!
Did y’all hear that? The Quirky Waffler is coming to breakfast nooks everywhere, at a pre-sale price of $68 (MSRP: $70) and a pre-sales threshold of 1220. Breakfast will never be the same!
Waffler’s specially designed waffle mold plates allow you to create cup-shaped “waffle shots”, opening a whole new world of waffle possibilities. Serve your waffles with heaping servings of fruit, mounds of whip cream, or a sea of syrup.
Waffler features:
- Two interchangable waffle plate sets: traditional Belgian style and Quirky’s special waffle shot design.
- Each mold plate includes a canal to prevent spillover and keep your Waffler clean.
- Compact unit can stand up vertically to be stored away in a cabinet when not in use.
- The power cord located in the rear of the unit can be wrapped and stored in the Waffler’s base.
- Adjustable timer with four presets for perfectly cooked waffles. When the bell dings, they’re done!
Waffler measures approximately 12” x 9” x 4”. Belgian waffles are 4” x 3”, while waffle shots measure 3” across by 2” high.
To spice things up a bit, we wanted to give the Waffler logo project a boost.
Below are three images that abstractly reference our current in-progress Waffler design. These images have certain qualities/details that reflect our design sensibilities for this project.
When designing your amazing logo(s) for the Waffler take a look at these images and bear in mind the design language you are seeing here. Please DO NOT copy these images into your logo design in any way, shape or form. But instead, think of your logos as reflecting this level of sophisticated consumer product design.
Here’s what we’re hoping this’ll accomplish:
- Give the community a better understanding of how the final product will look, so that they can have a better basis for designing their logo submissions.
- Give the community one last project before the product launches to reignite the momentum.
- Most importantly, result in better logos.
We’re going to see how this goes — let us know what you think!
Our interns got a little crafty while testing proof of concept for the winning “waffle shot” industrial design idea. See exhibits A through F:
Et voila! It works!
If the final product looks a little, well, crumbly, it’s for a few reasons:
- Our resourceful interns scrounged together everything available in the office kitchen (hence the strawberry and whipped cream garnish) to throw together this rough proof of concept. The ingredients weren’t ideal for this kind of testing, but they did the trick.
- We used a toaster oven for uniform heat and thin sheet metal as opposed to cast iron… not ideal for crispy waffle cookin’.
- The lower toaster oven heat meant that the dough didn’t cook as firmly as it would in a waffle maker.
But we weren’t aiming for perfection here… we just wanted to see if the concept would hold in practice. And it does!
With that, we’re on to naming, Quirks.
Oh, and happy 4th of July weekend. 
UPDATE: Over the weekend, Gaz flexed his culinary prowess in the name of additional design research.
Behold the results:
If that doesn’t sell products, I don’t know what will!
I went to a University that was a little heavy on design research (very academic and dry) and the fun of it has sort of been beaten out of me… until P-49.
Waffle research is the best. You get to learn, brainstorm, AND eat the results of your research! Check out Utah with his office-renowned waffling skills:
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