Custom Drinkware for Automated Retail Store

{Industrial Design + Graphic Design + Retail} When my client approached me with a brief for a coffee station inside a fully-automated retail store, I know I had some unique challenges ahead. Even something as simple as a vacuum-sealed stainless steel mug became quite constrained and difficult to design, when you’re interface with over 300 cameras, multiple technology teams and artificial intelligence. The very shape of the piece, as well as the graphic design had to be incredibly unique in order for the AI to register it, add it to the cart when the customer picks one up off a shelf. The product design was done in Fusion 360, and then sent to an overseas factory for tooling, manufacturing and painting. The factory ships blank mugs to a top secret decoration facility my company has domestically, and a state-of the-art rotary printer called the Helix printed the various designs with a full-wrap around the mug.