Saturday, November 19, 2011

Petty engineering design rant 6 - ambidextrous cheddar

It's been a while since the last entry, but this week I came across a new curiosity for which I thought it was worth resurrecting the series.  This one is definitely in the "utterly inconsequential" category, to the extent that it doesn't actually annoy me in the slightest; rather, it just intrigued me.  Enter stage left:  The Lake District Cheese Company.











The Lake District Cheese Company have been taking their packaging seriously, including the now-becoming-standard re-close-able* zip lock thingy. If you'd care to click the image to view it full size, I'd like to draw your attention to the helpful scissor-cutting dotted line in the top left-hand corner. If you turn the packet over there's an identical one on the other side, again in the top left as your look at it.

Now imagine cutting the packet open along the line with a pair of scissors. It won't take the right-handed amongst you very long to come to one of two conclusions:

a) the packaging designer was left-handed;
OR
b) the packaging designer was right-handed and an idiot.

That's all really. Like I said, of no consequence whatsoever. My desire for cheese probably won't let me go without a cheese-packet-opening solution for very long. But if you think it's necessary to issue instructions on how to safely and conveniently open your packet of cheese, it might be an idea to try it out with a representative of 90% of the world's population first**.

*interestingly, my spell-checker refuses to accept the existence of either "reclosable" or "recloseable" as English words. Ho hum.

**Ooh, ooh, I've thought of a third possible conclusion! Maybe they're marketing their cheese as a foodstuff for the "left-handed cheese connoisseur" market! In which case, I feel excluded and miserable.