Marc Newson is staying quiet on what he’s working on part-time with Jony Ive at Apple, but the famed designer is still promoting the work he’s doing outside of Apple, like the new beer machine he made for Heineken that looks just like a Mac Pro with a spout on top.
The Sub, a 41-centimeter tall machine shaped like a black metal beer cask -or a Mac Pro – can be filled with pressurized modules called Torps, that hold two liters of beer, and can be ordered to contain your favorite Heineken brand of brew. Newson says he’s a consistent beer drinker, but designed the new machine to be about more than just beer.
“It had to look and function in an appropriate way. I didn’t want to design an object which didn’t on some level use recognizable vocabulary. It’s not only about beer, it’s also about the greater experience of drinking beer.
Of course we want this object to look good, but this is not something that we wanted people to have to endure in order to have fresh beer. On a fundamental level it’s cylindrical, that’s probably the most recognizable design cue – beer is manufactured in cylindrical containers and it’s generally sold in cylindrical containers so the whole vocabulary of the cylinder is integral to the design.”
Once The Sub hits homes it will allow drinkers pour themselves the exact amount of brew they want, rather than enduring a whole handle of something you can’t finish.
The first units will be available later this autumn in silver, but if you’d like to get a Mac Pro-like Sub, you can get the limited edition all-black version if you’re in France or Italy.