Chapter 3: color of the year, first look at the waist pack, mealtime with kids woes
I’m Feeling 2022: Looking beyond the Omarion variant
Happy New Year! (How’s everyone doing? I for one am hanging on by a thread over here.) It’s January, which means it’s…PREDICTIONS SEASON. This is the magical time of the year when everyone and their Mother comes out of the woodwork to share their take on what will be trending up and trending down over the next 12 months. I love predictions, no matter how obscure the source. As a Marketer, it’s useful to get a sense of what might be buzzworthy for the purposes of content strategy and creative development. On a personal level, it gives me a false sense of control - like if I know that avocado milk is going to be all the rage this year, everything is going to be fine, JUST FINE DAMNIT. Doesn’t matter if we are entering our Junior year of Covid-19, just focus on sampling milk somehow squeezed from an avocado.
I think Predictions Season unofficially kicks off when Pantone announces their Color of the Year sometime around early December. The color they pick and the meaning behind it is meant to convey our collective mindset and it sets the tone for how world events will unfold in the new year. In other words, this color is meant to define who we are and how we will live our lives. Just slightly ambitious. Pantone’s 2022 Color of the Year - Very Peri - is a bold statement. It feels comically optimistic and hopeful given our lives right now. But I’ll take optimism where I can find it.
“Displaying a carefree confidence and a daring curiosity that animates our creative spirit, inquisitive and intriguing PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri helps us to embrace this altered landscape of possibilities, opening us up to a new vision as we rewrite our lives. Rekindling gratitude for some of the qualities that blue represents complemented by a new perspective that resonates today, PANTONE 17-3938 Very Peri places the future ahead in a new light.”
On the topic of ‘daring curiosity’, the New York Times released their list of 2022 Food Trends. Aside from mushrooms, which seem to have been trending for the past 5 years, I noticed that the list of foods and ingredients skews heavily Asian: laksa, traditional Chinese and Korean candies, regional Indian cuisine, Taiwanese breakfast and Chinese baijiu (a liquor distilled from sorghum that makes your insides feel like they are on fire.) The flavors are big and the colors are bright. Laksa in particular is delicious - rich coconut milk broth, the tangy taste of tamarind and cooling rice noodles. I hope to see some of these ingredients and dishes pop up on menus soon. Except baijiu - I’ve tried and simply cannot enjoy the taste of baijiu.
And speaking of ‘carefree confidence’, it’s shaping up to be another banner year for the Kardashian Industrial Complex. @GirlBossTown, whose Tik Tok content niche is PR, made some bold predictions for the Kardashian Krew: Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie.
She thinks it’ll be a year full of love, babies and business success for 818, Kylie Baby, Good American, Poosh and Skims. And this is maybe the year Khloe rewrites her life and drops Tristan Thompson for good.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole of trend predictions, WGSN Future Consumer and Pinterest Predicts Reports are two good (but dense) reads.
New product development: Waist pack ideation
I started working on the product brief for a waist pack about three months ago. As my kids have gotten older and I don’t have to carry as much stuff, a backpack sometimes felt too big and bulky. I think it’s also a seasonal thing: in the warmer months, I don’t have to carry as many layers so a larger bag isn’t as necessary. Aside from the fact that fanny/waist packs are en vogue right now, it makes a ton of sense for parents. They are highly practical and functional. It’s compact, hands-free and easy to access. It’s great for short outings and also for parents of older kids who are potty trained. I can’t wait for the day when I no longer need to lug around diapers and a pound of wipes.
However, the current diaper fanny pack market is pretty small and the existing products don’t seem to be designed with real life use in mind. Most products are not big enough — you can fit a wallet, keys and phone and not much else beyond that. There’s no room for the kids’ stuff. The biggest dealbreaker for me is that none of existing bags have a water bottle pocket. Without a water bottle pocket, I’m always going have to carry a separate bag of some kind. Another major issue is that most fanny packs for parents seem more like a female fashion statement and not gender agnostic in the design.
My product brief for the waist pack is pretty straightforward:
same overall design aesthetic and materials as the backpack
quick access pocket for parental items: wallet, keys, phone
water bottle pocket
internal organizational function
magnetic opening mechanism for quick access to interior of the waist pack
The initial prototyping phase for the waist pack took a fraction of the time compared to the backpack prototyping phase. Most of the upfront work in terms of overall design aesthetic and product features had already been done via the backpack. With the waistpack the focus was primarily on sizing it down and tweaking some of the details.
My favorite feature of the product is the interior accordion divider that connects via magnets. If you want keep your stuff organized, you can use the dividers. If you prefer to throw everything in together (like a savage), dividers can be pulled apart and tucked away.
What are your thoughts? Would you use this? Any additional design features you would like to see?
My favorite “whatever” toddler dinners (it involves a lot of white rice)
I had a most demoralizing (and also quite frequent) experience the other day. I planned out dinner for that night — in this case it was arroz con pollo. I assumed my kids would like it since it’s basically chicken, rice, tomato and some spices. What could possibly offend their tiny little taste buds? I went through the effort of making it and my daughter took one look at her plate, rolled her eyes, made a gagging noise and declared “I’m not going to eat that.” No amount of cajoling or blackmailing would convince her to take more than the tiniest bite. Her brother followed her lead and pushed his plate away as well. After I spent an hour making dinner, they ate pita chips, hummus and cheddar cheese.
A few days later I read Deb Perelman’s article Family Meal Planning for Real Life. Deb’s website Smitten Kitchen is one of my go-to sources for recipes and cooking inspiration. Her chocolate pudding pie is really easy, tasty and great for potlucks. One suggestion in her article is to have one or two nights of “whatever - something scrounged from the freezer, takeout or cereal for dinner.” I would like her to write a follow-up article that has a list of her ‘whatever’ meals - inspiration for meals when someone is too tired or do not have the patience to make a meal their kid will likely reject. There are plenty of Instagram accounts with pretty pictures of ‘kid-friendly’ meals that involve cutting carrots into hearts or overly complicated meals that involve blenders or a panini press. I would like more inspiration for meals that can be assembled in 10 minutes or less and rely heavily on hot water and the microwave. I’ve got a small arsenal of these meals that are easy and not particularly healthy. But my kids also won’t scream something along the lines of “0 out of 5 stars, would not recommend!” when they see it. Here are a few of my favorite carb-forward ‘whatever’ recipes:
White rice with furikake mix
leftover white rice, warmed up
sprinkle furikake mix on top
serve with a side of cheese stick
add a fried egg on top for protein
Plain noodle soup
thin dried Chinese-style noodles - the ones that take about 4 minutes to cook. You can find them at any Asian grocery store. You could also use angel hair pasta.
cook noodles in a broth made with chicken stock, 1 tablespoon of miso paste (mixed with a little water to thin out the miso paste), 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.
whisk in one beaten egg after you turn off the heat for some added protein.
Soupy rice
We call this soupy rice, but it’s essentially ochazuke.
leftover white rice, cold
1 packet of ochazuke mix. You can find this at most Asian grocery stores. I can’t read the Japanese characters the packaging, I just look for the colors on shelf.
pour boiling water over the rice and seasoning packet until water covers the rice.
Egg fried rice
leftover white rice
2 eggs, beaten
heat a generous pat of butter to a sauté pan
add in your leftover rice, i usually use about a cup and a half or so.
after a few minutes, add in beaten eggs and combine until eggs cook and get fluffed up
add salt to taste or soy sauce for some additional color
optional: stir in frozen peas
Do you have any favorite “whatever” meals for your kids? Share in the comments!
As a grown adult with no children, I would eat these whatever dinners myself.