Interview with Axel Meyer
Nokia Technologies
Red Dot: What motivated you to design the Aquacendo LightUp Filtered Bottle?
Every eight seconds a child dies as a result of unclean drinking water. In low-income countries, 80 per cent of the population cannot access clean water. This particularly affects children in impoverished regions. Given this background, it was my aim to make a difference by helping to address the health issues caused by the lack of clean water – and at the same time bring a little light and hope into the world.
The Aquacendo LightUp Filtered Bottle is much more than just a drinking bottle. What were the biggest challenges in the design process of your product?
Aside from ensuring the basic filtration performance, how to give this bottle a lighting function was one of our biggest challenges. We tried spotlights, flashlights and other light sources. After countless experiments, we had the idea of placing an LED light inside the bottle. The water acts as a natural diffuser and very effectively expands the light’s range.
In addition to its functional properties, your product is particularly convincing owing to its quality of responsibility. How important do you believe this aspect of design to be for product design in today’s world?
To me, responsible design is, at its core, an act of humility – an acknowledgment of the world’s reality, coupled with the courage to imagine how it can be made better. It seeks to create tools that are not only beautiful but also transformative. Design can help turn ideals into reality – bit by bit. That is why I believe that this design quality is more important now than ever before.
