Alt Group: Chocolate Keyboard

Alt Group: Chocolate Keyboard

This article was taken from the Hotshop Awards 2010 pages of the April/May edition of CREATIVE magazine. This is an extract for personal entertainment/reading only. Buy the magazine if you want to read more on the other entries!!
I thought I'd share this one because I think it's really interesting (there's a couple of others but its inappropriate having them when you can just buy the magazine).

In House Design Category
Winner

Alt Group: Chocolate Bar Keyboard Christmas Gift

 

It might be only the second year the In-House category has been part of the Hotshop Awards, but that doesn't mean it isn't hotly contested. John Davidson writes.

In fact, the In=House category has been on of the hardest to judge, as each agency, comapny and design house outdoes each other with grander and more outrageous self-promotion.

The winner of the 2010 In-House category would have to really knock the judge's socks off and that is exactly what the Alt Group, the 2009 In-House winners, has done.

Last year was a big year for the Auckland based multidisciplinary design firm as it won 87 international and local awards, completed a number of benchmark projects and its work was profiled in several major publications.

So how did Alt Group celebrate its stellar year? By creating an engaging and edible Christmas gift for its clients in the form of 150 full size Belgian chocolate computer keyboards.

"The origin of our company name came from looking down at a keyboard and picking out the alt key." Alt Group creative director Dean Pool said.

"We thought it was time to bring attention to that idea in a subtle way. At first we thought of giving everyone a cast gold alt key, like a replacement tooth of your keyboard. Very expensive - a little pimp, so we moved on."

Poole said the thinking behind the keyboards was that the design company "is a little like the warning on the chocolate bar - 'may contain traces of nuts'. We like ideas that are one step removed, the old modernist principle of form follows function. Sometimes the form of something can remind you of something else. A chocolate bar looks like a keyboard, it's a visual cliche. Changing the material changes the function." 

Alt Group's confectionery creation was a hit with the judges, with one describing the work as "having a high impact" and being "really well done". Another said it was a "sweet idea that tastes great", and another judge remarked on Alt's fantastic "finish, style and execution".

This article is copyright to CREATIVE magazine and Alt Group.

I want one :(