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#25 Innovage
2008

The coffee of tomorrow

by Matteo Thun

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In front of a cup of coffee

illy’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations have been an occasion for me to take a deeper look at this corporate enterprise. What I see is a fine example of Innovage. Thinking back to the nineties, I remember when a cup of espresso coffee was still fairly much a lack-lustre commodity. At the bar one would simply order a coffee, without even giving a second thought to what was thrown up by the bar tender. At the time I’d already acquired considerable experience working for leading companies in the cut-glass, porcelain and steel sectors – the likes of Alessi, Rosenthal, Villeroy Boch. I was working as art director for a Swiss firm making plastic watches when in the spring of 1990 I was propelled into the world of illy, as what I was doing at the time tied in with what they wanted. It all began when I received
a hefty envelope addressed to me; inside there was a very detailed technical report and a request that I turn out a design for an illy espresso coffee cup according to the specifications set out in the brief.
I was quick to realise that here was a golden opportunity for me to scientifically and professionally design not any old coffee cup, but that very special cup, the cup-of-cups, used for serving espresso coffee. It was all clearly set down: volume; diameter; what the rim coming into contact with the lips as well as the bottom for keeping the coffee warm had to be like…
With such instructions to go by I was little more than the hand fashioning and materialising an idea that had already been so exhaustively thought out and described in those specifications.
The fact is that the illy espresso coffee cup wasn’t begotten of a purely aesthetic idea. It was rather the logical outcome – almost inevitable, I’d say – of the scientific know-how built up by the House on its product over time.
With this pool of knowledge and a constant striving for perfection, a fairly commonplace and functional object was to become the attention-grabbing icon we are familiar with today.
Over the years the cup’s surface has hosted many fine patterns, designs and images. Artists, photographers and architects from different countries and cultural backgrounds have exerted their best artistic efforts on the cup.
The cup has thus become a medium for telling many stories, all captivating and appealing. In the process brand awareness has grown and is now truly unique. These artistic contributions have established a special relationship between the consumer and the medium, indeed with the very porcelain out of which the cup is made, enhancing the pleasure of tasting a beverage which is already in itself a masterpiece.
Three-quarters of a century down the line I still see the same drive and outlook that inspired the enterprise from the start: a reaching out to the future, with a new and ambitious plan to set up its headquarters to capture and convey the stories and emotions that have grown up around the brand and in which the famed espresso coffee cup has played an important role.
The project, called illyCity, and the visitors’ itinerary, called “Stations of Taste”, are challenging new ways of getting the House’s essential values, such as its unflagging commitment to quality, fair trade, environmental protection and all-around innovation, across to the general public and consumer. Visitors may expect a unique, entertaining and informative experience they won’t easily forget thanks to exhibits presented using vivid theatrical techniques, and a fascinating journey, both physical and mental, that will bring them into direct contact with the raw material in the enthralling, coffee history-laden (and not only) city of Trieste.
It’s a multi-sensorial voyage of discovery that will reveal to the visitor how today’s innovations can boast a history and legacy reaching back 75 years.

Matteo Thun

Born in Bolzano in 1952, Matteo Thun studied at the Salzburg Academy under the guidance of Oskasr Kokoschka. In 1978, after graduating from the State University of Florence in architecture, he moved to Milan, where he began working for Ettore Sottsass. In 1981, with the latter, Michele De Lucchi and Aldo Cibic, he founded the Memphis Group. Since 1984 he has been running his own firm, winning a number of important awards, including the Golden Compass (three times), the Wallpaper Design Award in 2004, and many other accolades for the hotels designed by him and built in Hamburg, Frankfurt, and in the South Tyrol. In 1990 he designed the illycaffè ceramic espresso coffee cup, which became the blank canvas for the illy art collection.

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Images

  • INNOVAGE - Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • School of Graphic Design at the London College of Communication

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  • Romi Yoo

    INNOVATION AND VINTAGE, INNOVAGE. An innovation is a new thing or a new method of doing, and also it is the introduction of new ideas, methods. Innovage, I think that innovation and vintage both of them come from human’s desire. I could say that is the dream of people. New ideas, new method and so on, all new creative things come from people’s dream and desire. When people step on something or step in a particular direction, people put their foot on the thing or move their foot in that direction. So, in my design, the feet, which means step on people’s dream. Get into people’s desire and dream. I hope that all come true in very soon. That is the Innovage I think.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Mark Simmonds

    DRAWING IN THE WIND. The wind is an invisible force. Yet one can experience it’s immediate effects, such as the sight of a lonely floating plastic bag or the glistening sound of golden leafs in the autumn. A system was devised that graphically captures the wind. Due to the dynamic nature of the wind, each drawing is unique.

  • Dan Sayle

    Illywords Write up. VINTAGE INNOVATION. Designs of an age that today can still be classed as innovative. Zig Zag Chair. Gerrit Rietveld. 1933. EKCO Bakelite Radio. Wells Coates. 1933. Zippo Lighter. George G Blaisdell. 1933.

  • Mark Simmonds

    MUSIC TRACE MACHINE. Visualising music. David Bowie’s 1979 album ‘Lodger’ interpreted by Music Trace Machine. The machine converts sound to motion, which is carbon paper traced onto sheets of newsprint. The outcomes of the drawings are dependant on the length and intensity of the particular piece of music. The machine consists of four components, sound to light converter, light to motion converter, stereo headphones and a music player.

  • Mark Simmonds

    COAL COVERS. In the 19th century British buildings in cities usually had a coal hole in the pavement to allow the coal merchant to fill up the bunker (often under the pavement) without entering or transporting coal soot in the customers house. The hole, which measured anything from 12 to 24 inches, was covered with a cast-iron plate that often advertised the name of the maker. They were also given a raised pattern so that on rainy days pedestrians would not slip on a smooth surface.

  • Mark Simmonds

    COAL COVERS. In the 19th century British buildings in cities usually had a coal hole in the pavement to allow the coal merchant to fill up the bunker (often under the pavement) without entering or transporting coal soot in the customers house. The hole, which measured anything from 12 to 24 inches, was covered with a cast-iron plate that often advertised the name of the maker. They were also given a raised pattern so that on rainy days pedestrians would not slip on a smooth surface.

  • Nicola Ryan

    VISUAL LOOPS. Acknowledgement of the value of history paves the path to the future. A loop of constant referral: Looking behind to the past, whilst simultaneously looking forwards to the future.

  • Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • Nicola Ryan

    KALEIDOSCOPES. Reinventing ideas of the past. Replacing the traditional glitter and beads with electronic circuit boards; creating a snippet of the future.

  • Thomas Brasington

    LOOKING BACKWARDS TO GO FORWARDS. Even if we don’t realise we are always looking to the past to create something new. The photos created are the result of photographing through the front of a lens to capture the reflected image of that camera’s viewfinder. Due to the construction of a lens you get a reflection of myself on each of the lens’ elements creating the image that the other camera ‘sees’. The camera itself is significant here too. It remains the most widely used device for recording our world and possible the oldest but it is constantly advancing in terms of technology and innovation.

  • Sheetal Patel

    TAPE 2. Working with Tape, pixilation of the piece and eliminating areas to show how the tapes use and importance has decreased. Since the CD, the majority don’t use tapes anymore and they are becoming forgotten.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Gyorgy Korossy

    Although using grids to create complex compositions of type and imagery, or intricate illustrations is by no means a new idea, designers have been developing innovative methods of deploying them in all fields of design for decades . As one of the most prominent graphic artists of the last 75 years, M. C. Escher exploited the grid to no end creating some of the most amazing and often baffling pieces depicting numerous sides of an impossible reality. Influenced by Escher’s sketches and his quote on design: “As far as I know, there is no proof whatever of the existence of an objective reality apart from our senses, and I do not see why we should accept the outside world as such solely by virtue of our senses.” I have applied the principles of the relatively new graphic style, Pixel Art, using building blocks to create a piece illustrating an impossible reality.

  • Oliver Bothwell

    TRIANGLES. Innovation and Vintage; the old and new, or rear view mirror as it is referred to by Marshall McLuhen. Innovation for me cannot be without the past, as it has to be growing from history. Innovation is a balance of creativity and destruction, destroying the parts that do not work to create the balanced solution. This piece represents all of this, balance, growth and destruction. Why the triangle? The triangle is a solid base on which to grow.

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