Sip&Go

Overview

“Create a fully portable, hand-held coffee maker that can also be used stationary.”

There is a gap in Princess’s product range: portable coffee makers. Most products on the market have significant flaws, such as design, price and the time required to heat the water. Princess wants to make sure its product addresses these issues.

Client: Princess
Duration: 4 months
Team: Group project
Main parts: Sketching, modelling, rendering, UI

Inception

When are portable coffee makers needed?

Drinking on the way to work or university is common in cities and towns. Users want a high-quality coffee drinking experience.

Commuters crossing a busy street, one of them drawn as a line sketch holding a coffee cup.

Hand-drawn storyboard in twelve panels: a hike, an office commute and a student day, each a moment when a portable coffee maker is needed, with speech bubbles such as ‘Oh, I shouldn’t forget to take my coffee maker to the office!’

Coffee being poured from a small steel pot into a ceramic cup.

What already exists?

Current-day coffee machines come in an extensive range of varieties. Each coffee maker is specialised in one aspect: drinking experience, affordability or preparation time. Most devices appear as cylinders with a modular construction.

Three existing portable coffee makers side by side: a glossy black one with a red button, a graphite one with a large round button and a red one with a ribbed metal lid. — Existing products on the market (research reference, not my design)

Keeping the brand DNA

The product follows the client’s current design catalogue, so that consumers can easily connect the product to the brand.

The Princess product line: coffee grinder, citrus juicer, dual air fryer, coffee maker and contact grill in stainless steel and black. — Images: Princess

Ideation

Looking for answers

We made the concept a reality by experimenting with shapes and finding inspiration for innovations.

Board of Sip&Go concept sketches: modular cup and pod-case studies with teal accents, and notes on integrated water heating and a lock that opens to place the pods.

Pencil studies of Sip&Go cup shapes and sections, beside a shaded sketch of the dark cup with its green power button.

Foam size models of the Sip&Go numbered 5 to 9 on a workshop table.

A student testing one of the foam size models by drinking from it in a hall.

Solution

Quality coffee for when you are on the go

Pour · Press · Drink. With this device, drinking prime-quality coffee is possible anywhere and everywhere.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go portable coffee maker standing on a light grey studio floor, seen slightly from above: slim brushed-aluminium cylinder, black textured grip band and a glowing ring button facing the camera.

Easy to grab, comfortable to hold

One ring button shows the state: on/off, heating, done.

AI-enhanced render: Three Sip&Go coffee makers leaning together, their ring buttons glowing red, yellow and green.

AI-enhanced render: A hand holding the Sip&Go by its aluminium lower section, the black grip band and glowing ring button above the fingers.

AI-enhanced render: Close-up of the black textured grip band and the glowing ring button.

How it works

Six parts make up the modular mug: the screw lock, the capsule compartment, the water-heating compartment, the battery, the heating coils and the mug itself.

AI-enhanced render: Exploded view of the Sip&Go: the thin threaded screw lock, the capsule compartment, the water-heating compartment cut away to show the copper heating coils around its water tank, the battery of six cells, the coffee dispenser and the modular mug.

Compact

Everything stacks inside one slim cylinder. The capsule compartment, the water-heating compartment with its heating coils, and the battery all sit inside the modular mug, so the whole coffee maker is easy to grab and comfortable to hold.

AI-enhanced render: A transparent version of the Sip&Go standing on a light floor, showing its internal layers.

AI-enhanced render: Render of the coffee maker’s brushed-aluminium lid seen from directly above, lit by a single soft light on a black background.

The details

A modular opening, USB-C charging, capsules and a soft texture where you hold it.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go tilted, with its modules pulled slightly apart to show the separate sections.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go tilted with its lid off and the black capsule holder lifted out above the open top.

AI-enhanced render: The back of the Sip&Go with its USB-C port just below the grip band, and a USB-C cable held just in front of it.

Show your story

Make it yours: the stainless-steel body can be coloured, so everyone can personalise their coffee maker with the finish that shows their identity.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go in red, sage green and teal on light grey blocks, the teal one leaning on a pyramid, with a red cup in front.

AI-enhanced render: Render of two upright Sip&Go coffee makers, one deep blue and one brushed aluminium, each with a black grip band and ring button, on a concrete block with diagonal sunlight.

In context

AI-enhanced render: Brewing at the office desk: the Sip&Go pours straight into its own cup.

AI-enhanced render: Two travellers at a train table with the Sip&Go and its cup of coffee.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go and its steaming cup on a rock at a forest campsite.

AI-enhanced render: The Sip&Go upside down on a kitchen table next to its cup of steaming coffee.

AI-enhanced render: Render of a tall brushed-aluminium Sip&Go coffee maker with a black knit grip band and a round ring button, standing on a raw concrete block in hard low sunlight against a grey wall.

AI-enhanced render: Render of the aluminium Sip&Go coffee maker standing on a light oak dining table in a bright Scandinavian dining room with a ceramic vase on a sideboard.

AI-enhanced render: Render of the aluminium Sip&Go coffee maker on a charcoal dining table in a dark room with board-formed concrete walls and black chairs.

AI-enhanced render: Render of the brushed-aluminium Sip&Go coffee maker on a grey stone surface, with sharp window-frame shadows across a plaster wall.