The Problem
Anyone who has tried to flip a small but heavy cast iron pan with a 3 egg omelet, most certainly know what we are talking about. The flip always goes bad and the faithful spatula is never wide enough. A seemingly simple problem but one that affects people worldwide was something we set out to solve. As a Studio that loves to solve problems that we observe and obsess about, we conduct design studies such as this one to come up with interesting solutions to unique problems that others don't think about.
The realisation
When we started researching how and for what people used a spatula for, we realized that spatula's by design have never been adequately designed for flipping. Its primary function has been mixing, stirring, and supporting food. Plus spatulas can't be too wide as they won't do the above in small pans which are usually used to cook portions. The surface area of a spatula is designed to be small to navigate a variety of pans for spreading and mixing. So the primary function of the object is not to just flip eggs or a crepe and hence the surface area is small. What we realized was that we had to retain the nature of the existing object, but transform that into a unique solution without altering its personality.
01. Stirring
02. Mixing
03. Flipping
The Idea
Keeping the spatula the same surface area but increasing the functionality and introducing another dimension was how we figured we could solve the existing problem. We were able to create a variety of paper mockups which helped us understand the right proportions and scale, including the hinge mechanism and the flip guide wires.
