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Grundig Serenity: A Contemporary Tea Maker

Mert Ali Bukulmez, a creative product design student from Istanbul, Turkey, has designed the Grundig Serenity, a contemporary tea maker that focuses on joyful user-experience. The project, which started in January 2019 and finished in May 2019, was an internship project at Arçelik Group in Istanbul. The tea maker combines retro/futuristic style with Scandinavian simplicity, resulting in an aesthetically noticeable product with a joyful user experience.

The Grundig Serenity stands out with its unique features, such as a smaller dock than the body, allowing the product to look elevated from the ground, and a slightly curved body combined with sliced surfaces that support its unique identity. The tea maker is made using Polypropylene (PP) for the body and Xenoy (PBT+PC) for the handle, lid, and dock, using injection molding technology. With dimensions of 173mm x 250mm x 260mm, the tea maker offers a minimal and simple design suitable for contemporary homes.

The interaction point of the product is the lower handle, which features LED dots that provide feedback to the user about the operation. The design process involved extensive sketch modeling, literature reviews about user-experience, and conversations with engineers to ensure the product's functionality, production, and electronics were well-integrated. The project also included focus groups and interface mock-ups to gather feedback from potential tea maker users.

The Grundig Serenity tea maker was awarded the Silver A' Design Award in the Home Appliances category in 2020, recognizing its outstanding expertise, innovation, and remarkable design that introduces positive feelings, amazement, and wonder. The copyrights for the design belong to Arçelik A.Ş, 2019, and Mert Ali Bukulmez aims to continue creating designs that build an emotional bridge between consumers, based on quality research and an empathetic approach.

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