Flight
Challenge
10 weeks. 1 Lab. 1000s of ideas. The art of brewing beer is a beautifully intricate process and one in which I think deserves to be celebrated. With Flight, I hope to evoke the feelings of being surrounded by Tahoe’s beer culture and honor the growth that this lake has provided me. Flight is a beer tasting experience that not only represents my identity but also allows me to share my passion for sharing beer, both the culture and pints, with others.
Client
ME103: Product Realization
Tools
SolidWorks, Adobe Illustrator, metal casting tools, hand router, manual mill
Role
Product designer (and student)
Timeline
10 weeks
Journey
The 10-week process to create the final product was more than a highlight reel. About 4 weeks into the course, I realized that I was not in love with the product I had originally started out on because I would be leaving the class learning a machining process that I knew in my gut was ill-suited for me. This project was no longer a test of my ability to produce but was a test in following my gut. After a quick meeting with a Course Advisor, I put my pen to paper and created the epitome of a passion project. While my peers were 4 weeks into prototyping their MVPs, I was head-down in my sketchbook and deep in SolidWorks.
I knew that the summers I spent in South Lake Tahoe were formative to the person I am today. It instilled a passion for hard work, a love for scrappy labor, and a deep connection to the natural world. These foundations of my being were the basis for my inspiration with Flight. South Lake Tahoe is a hub of microbreweries and hopped-up craft brewers.
With the goal of representing Lake Tahoe Brewing culture in mind, I consulted a few topographic maps of the lake and chose to design 4 layers: the surface, 2 intermediate steps, and the lake floor. I had the unique challenge of designing around 6.5 oz tasting glasses and the limitations of our largest casting snap-flask. So in SolidWorks, I created the topographies, recessed the glass positions, and created a base for the flight to sit in.
“I am here at Lake Tahoe and there is magic at 6,000 feet.
”
To make Flight, I laser cut the layers of the depth map of Tahoe, headed to the woodshop, and started to perfect my pattern. As many casting projects go, there was a lot of trial and error - only revisable once you rammed up and saw your errors. By adding draft to the pattern on the spindle sander, adding fillets with wax, and sanding the pattern thoroughly, I finally was able to get a mold that produced a clean cast.
After getting a cast that was worthy of hosting a flight of beers, I finished the piece by milling off the gates and gave the top layer a shiny finish to add depth to the map of Tahoe. The final step in this process was hand-routing the silhouette of the cast into a piece of walnut.
Solution
With the physical product complete, my final goal was to create a brand identity that bolstered its mission: to evoke the feelings of a summer spent in Tahoe. With this goal in mind, I cemented this brand in a color scheme that consisted of a warm hoppy yellow, deep slate grey, and crisp white. With this color scheme, I was inspired by many of South Lake Tahoe’s more modern breweries and created a tasting menu titled “SUMMER SET,” a collection of brews that satiate my lake-driven cravings.
To further the brand identity, I explored a short promotional video. The video’s tone is youthful and bright, featuring a dichotomy of a jump cut intro transitioning into smooth pans. “Radar” by Whethan was chosen as the backing track to this video as it provides titular context, reminding you that “it doesn’t matter where you are” but with Flight, you will always be reminded of your summers in Tahoe.
