#HTE

Eat Sushi In Escher-esque Style

These savory ceramics serve 3D optical illusions using nothing but soy sauce. The dipping dishes are subtle when empty, but with just a splash you’ll feel like you’re eating off an impossible MC Escher drawing. The Soy Shapes are a new project from Tokyo-based UK designer Duncan Shotton. After initial development the ceramics company partnered on the project pulled out citing a poor match for their customer base, but Shotton decided to push on anyway. With successful products like Rainbow Pencils and skyline page markers under his belt, he was sure his blend of fun and function could find a hungry audience.

He was right—with just one day left, the Soy Shapes campaign is nearly 4 times over its goal. The two styles are blocky and graphic, but aren’t too detailed or oddly shaped for comfortable eating and cleaning. 

The design process started with hand cut and glued layers of plastic sheet, wound through 3D models and 3D printing, and ended with beautiful and minimal cast ceramic.

They’re made from Hakuji porcelain in Gifu Japan, and they come in two styles of box. The standard-issue option is a snug flap top, and the limited edition option features a sliding box with slick form-fitting custom insert. These had been the ideal package, but due to the difficulty of producing them in quantity they instead went the “utterly ridiculous route” of cutting and gluing 77 limited edition boxes by hand.

Grab them in ones, twos, or multi sets, starting at 15 £ (~$20 USD) for a single. 

The only immediate question I have is whether the depth of the mold is so shallow that its visual impact would be drowned by a standard meal’s worth of soy sauce. While Westerners tend to go a bit sauce-wild, dunking our food into buckets of horseradish-muddied soy, the visual impact seems to require only a tiny amount of sauce. But pouring small amounts at a time wouldn’t ruin the fun, nor would watching the cool designs emerge as you eat.