Marc Newson designs Heineken’s first ‘in-home consumer product’

The Sub is a draught beer product, which chills Heineken beers, and has been born out of consumer research instructed by Heineken’s in-house design team which found ‘consumers are looking to enjoy an upscale drinking experience in their own homes’.

Heineken head of design Marc van Itersen says the need for the prouct was identified three years ago ‘and we’ve been in collaboration with Marc Newson for two-and-a-half-years’.

Van Iterson heads up a design team of 12 people and works on ‘everything from brand innovation, to logos, bottles, glasses but also development and innovation linked to consumer needs’.

Newson says, ‘I’ve designed appliances before and of course I live with appliances and have my own pet hates – the main one being I don’t want to look at them, so one of my primary objectives was that people could enjoy looking at it.’

He adds, ‘It’s a male-oriented object made of anodized aluminium, but it needed to look good from every angle, and that’s particularly important if you think it’s going to be sitting on someone’s bar or counter.’

Newson says that as an object the Sub’s form ‘speaks about how beer is delivered and made. Its cues are fairly obvious as it’s a giant pressurised vessel’.

Branding has been kept to a minimum says Newson – ‘None of us wanted to write Heineken in big green letters’.

Its look, he says, is ‘qualitative and technical’ and ‘as a mysterious looking object, people want to investigate it and touch it’.

The Sub is supported online where drinkers can shop for beers from the Heineken portfolio and buy extras like a serving case, glassware, mats and skimmer, all designed by Newson.