Color Changing Mugs
Scott Mohnkern
congratulate Joel on another job well done.
The Mug:
This White Mug, when filled will a cool beverage (or when empty) has The World
of Usenet in Big Print, with some "traditional" newsgroups underneath it.
When you fill it with your favorite hot beverage (mine is coffee), the text
disappears, and is replaced with a yellow page with black lettering which
has some of the "spicier" alt.* newsgroups, with "The world of alt.*" at the
top.
The Mug is great, except that the original "traditional" newsgroups appear as
a "ghost image" on the mug when it is filled with a hot beverage. Upon closer
examination I noted that the traditional newsgroups appear to be etched into
the mug, rather than just printed on. Becaused they are etched on, the
etching appears even when the color changing occurs.
Another comment:
The "label" which is used for the color changing portion of the mug is pretty
clearly visible (the outline of the label, which is clear, is visible),
unfortunate, but probably necessary.
My recommendations:
If it's possible, I wouldn't have yellow on black lettering. It's quite
readable, but if the color changing could be black on white, or some other
combination, that would be better.
Also:
Perhaps another way to design this mug is as follows:
On one side of the mug, have "The World of Usenet" on one side, which switches
to "The world of alt.*" when hot liquids are placed in the mug.
Then on the other side of the mug, have the newsgroups, both the traditional,
and the alt.*, like it is now.
This would allow for more newsgroups to be added, or for the lettering size to
be increased, whichever was appropriate.
(I probably should have suggested this when discussion of the mug was
occuring, but I didn't think of it until I actually saw the mug)
Despite these few, minor complaints, I'm extremely happy with the mug, and it
now sits upon my desk, for all to view.
Scott Mohnkern
Joel K. Furr
>The Mug is great, except that the original "traditional" newsgroups appear as
>a "ghost image" on the mug when it is filled with a hot beverage. Upon closer
>examination I noted that the traditional newsgroups appear to be etched into
>the mug, rather than just printed on. Becaused they are etched on, the
>etching appears even when the color changing occurs.
They're not etched on; that's the thick color-changing ink you see
there. The ink really is that thick.
>If it's possible, I wouldn't have yellow on black lettering. It's quite
>readable, but if the color changing could be black on white, or some other
>combination, that would be better.
It's actually blue on yellow, but admittedly, the lettering is smaller
than I'd prefer if I were to do it over again.
The big problem *I* have with it is that the cold side looks so muddy;
the words are somewhat hard to read.
Anyway, I shan't be doing color-changing mugs again soon; the ink is
extremely hard to deal with. I may do other mugs again, but the print
will be larger. I wasn't really aware how small the print would become.
Thanks for the comments, Scott. Suggestions and constructive evaluation
is always appreciated.
--
<a href="http://www.danger.com">Joel Furr home page</a>