My Custom Coffee Tumbler – Spring 2013

Shiro-Sakura-2013-Grande

 

Spring is almost upon us here in Tokyo so I thought that it was time to move on from winter and embrace spring. To reflect this I have designed a new grande cup liner for my custom coffee tumbler to add a bit more of a spring feel. I have also designed a tall size version for those with tall size cups. Although I am not super fond of pink it really did work best as the background for the most popular spring flower here: 桜 (Japanese cherry). To tell the truth, I think we have more cherry blossoms in my hometown in Canada than one would typically see in Tokyo, but people in Japan tend to associate cherry blossoms with being a very Japanese thing and the strongest association with the coming of spring. As they tend to bloom here for not much more than a week in each area it can be a bit of a briefly dramatic spectacle. It is a nice time to go to Shinjuku Gyouen (新宿御苑) on a weekday and have a picnic, shoot some photos and relax. Go to a local park on the weekend and you will be lucky if you can sit down never mind picnic.

I think that by the time cherry blossoms have come and gone I will be happy to do another cup design that is not quite so pink 😉

Update: By printing it on 和紙 (Japanese traditional paper) that is slightly off-white I have managed to make it look a bit more classic and a lot less pink!

My Custom Coffee Tumbler – Winter 2012

Shiro Winter 2012 GrandeWhen I go to Starbucks (one of the few consistently non-smoking coffee establishments in Japan that serves decent straight iced tea) I tend to prefer to use my own tumbler, both for the discount and for its ability to hold liquid at temperature a bit longer than thin PET. Over the years I have had a few of these cups but as they were all plastic they tended not to be as effective at holding temperature as the stainless tumbler I had and I was always a bit torn which to use. Enter the stainless-core design-my-own-tumbler. This summer Starbucks in Japan started to sell my dream custom tumbler.

I picked one up and have been using it since fall. As the weather has moved into winter it was time to replace the falling leaves motif I went with for the fall months with something more season appropriate. Yesterday I designed, printed and prepared my winter tumbler (Shiro Snowflake version 2012). The dog (Shiro) design is one I did a number of years ago and still use on occasion in a variety of applications. Pretty nice, eh?