“Take one, take another, stack and enjoy” — Complements
Juana Mom
Grabbing and putting toys in their mouths are inevitable moves for children since their curiosity makes them want to explore the world. This childlike search for experience and playfulness is what caught my eye when looking at the Complements chocolates. They are modular artisan chocolates conceived by an Australian collaboration between Bakedown Cakery chocolate artisan shop, and Universal Favourite design agency (Universal Favourite np). From 3D print molds and a handmade process, in 2016 Bakedown Cakery and Universal Favourite gathered powerful gastronomic design skills to create a box of twelve different flavoured, unexpected and delicious looking chocolates. Each small block was colourfully designed as a staircase shape to allow combinations by stacking and locking together in order to create a single bite sized cube (Figure 1). From its making to its successful consumption, I observed that Complements challenge the way we normally eat and perceive chocolates.
They convey for everyone, a source of an enjoyable, entertaining attitude of playfulness, and at the same time they construct a path to aesthetic pleasure through the beauty of the product. Nevertheless, how does the Complements chocolates aim to produce a powerful design for play and pleasure? Through this review, on one hand, the secret of their playful intention is going to be revealed. On the other hand, attention will be given to aesthetic pleasure and the playful attitude it leads to.
The Complements chocolates are an unexpected creation: they make everyone’s playful childish spirit come out.
An immediate first impression shows that they do not represent the conventional interpretation such as a traditional brown chocolate bar does. It is interesting to start by pointing out how the chocolate’s creation is linked with the philosophy of the Avant-Garde movements in their search for individual expression and originality through an understanding of the artist as the absolute source and ground zero of the work and relying on freedom and play as the source of inspiration (Krauss). In the Complements chocolates, this child-mind philosophy is enacted by the team of designers . While creating and articulating a new visual modern world, they explored different interlocking shape designs (Figure 2) and created a final unique one, where playfulness, creativity and engagement are constantly linked. Conveyed to the consumer, the relation between the sweet treat and the individual creates an environment of playfulness as it is an enjoyable attitude, entertained by this activity of locking together small edible blocks. However, more is hidden behind this attitude. Human’s behaviour is challenged by making them use their own creativity which is pointed out through how the physical and visual product enables their interest. With its geometry, its bright colours, its minimalistic aesthetic, its balance or its clean organic shape (Figure 3), the consumer is placed in a child environment. An engagement relation opens new ways of interaction with the product where at any rate, each consumer’s curiosity studies the chocolate’s mould, grabs it, turns it around, mixes it and matches it with another one: it is about experimenting and discovering. The entire design is enforced by its tangibility that grants to understand its shape, to touch it, feel it and see it, as well as its attractive easy small-sized manipulability, allows free movements with the hands from the flavour selection to the cube construction. The size is key, as design theorist Chaim Ophir Gingold’s underlines when he says that “the miniaturization diminishes the world to a scale that feels safe, is easily understood, grasped and placed under the reign of a player’s thoughts, imagination, feelings, and manipulations” (470). Furthermore, through its ephemeral and sensorial stage, the relation between the chocolate and the consumer creates a realm of design through a playful modular engagement based on originality and individuality.
Seeing that the chocolates give the opportunity to engage in a playful environment, the consumer will be placed under a sensation of pleasure. As I suggested, the sweets were conceived through a creative crafted ‘out of the box’ thinking process, as something that went far beyond what is normally set and expected. While playing, I have observed that we are not only using our human abilities and intelligence, but also sensations. When adults are engaged in arranging the blocks with creativity and curiosity, as a child does, they also encounter aesthetical pleasure which responds to a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment. Moreover, if something transmits pleasure, it also transmits aesthetic qualities such as beauty and attractiveness. Along with this design, Complements highly represents this delightful sensorial stage. Though, it is fundamental to first point out that the relation with the material world, allows to create this engaged and enjoyable sensorial act of playing. Supported by anthropologist Daniel Miller’s relevant observation in his work Stuff, the interaction with materiality is a key feature of human enrichment and development. For centuries, objects helped us expand our capacities, enhance ourselves, create identities or even offered us new possibilities in a chaotic world. What creates a pleasant sensation is the connection with the real object itself.
The connection with materiality turns out to be a strong and necessary quality for us to perceive and feel.
In this sense, the idea of playing with the different staircases, to take time to look at each of them, to admire and appreciate them, to feel the texture and analyse the geometry, makes the aesthetic pleasure even more powerful. Because of its materials, the modular relation slows down between the chocolates and the individual, provoking this pure hedonistic reaction and creating many sensory awakenings. Acquiring Complements, the purchaser cannot escape from sensory domains of sight, touch, taste and smell. These little treats are thus edible designs conceived to give an outstanding,
surprising, sophisticated and delicious taste to our palate as, when mixed and built together “something truly special happens, a uniquely mouth-watering flavour greater than the sum of the parts” (Universal Favourite np). Nevertheless, what makes this creation even more attractive is the visual language (Figure 4). The clean staircase shape, the vibrant mix of colours with elegant painterly and marble-like finishes, the patterns, the uniformity and the tangibility, are assets that are perceived and appreciated. In The Aesthetic Pleasure in Design Scale, authors support the idea that “items that measure hedonic value, include: ‘captivating’, ‘stylish’, ‘premium’ and ‘creative’” (87). Following this, the aesthetic pleasure transmitted through the chocolates, is a mix of visual satisfaction and stimulant senses, where people will find beauty, novelty and originality.
To summarize, Complements is a synonym of a contemporary design that is not only offering us sweet treats to taste, but also pleasant and playful objects. From their creation to their consumption, relationships between the designer, the consumer and the chocolates were constructed under stages of creativity, imagination, engagement and curiosity. Because of how the edible little sculptures were gastronomically and graphically conceived, they convey for any individual from kids to adults, an immediate appeal to play and interact. At the same time, this strong relation with its materiality awakens human senses to a satisfying and pleasant beauty.
