Tokyo-based designer Duncan Shotton puts the design in your dinner with Soy Shapes, a set of ceramic dipping dishes that become optical illusions when filled with soy sauce. The two designs, entitled Cubes and Triangle, channel M.C. Escher's cube illusions and Swedish designer Oscar Reutersvärd's impossible-looking Penrose Triangle, by using the condiment's natural tendancy to look like a gradient depending on its depth.
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"Even in the most simple of soy sauce dishes, you can notice the slight colour gradation at the edge of the liquid. My first inspiration came from that and I started to imagine how the various shades could be split and used as a graphic element in a dish," Shotton tells The Creators Project. His knack for incorporating satisfying combinations of shapes, colors, and concepts into his work led him to these progenitors of Op Art, though he gives credit to the album cover of Above and Beyond's Tri-State for sparking his obsession with the Penrose Triangle. Shotton worked with ceramic artisans in Gifu, Japan to refine the production process and perfect the height of the dish to get an even and clear separation of shades. Now the products are available through a Kickstarter that's already doubled its initial goal. There are 10 days left to get your chopsticks on the set of Soy Shapes through the crowdfunding site.
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