The Unpractical Coffee Pot
Original Artwork - Hilde Franzsen (Sidebar Design)
Sometimes, it’s the imperfections that make something truly special.
Alternate title: How an illustrated coffee pot with no handle became one of my favourites.
Alternate alternate title: using AI-generated reference images is probably not the best call if you don’t actually know what a drip coffee setup looks like (I’m an ‘order a cappuccino from a barista’ kinda gal).
This handleless coffee pot is wildly unpractical. How would you pour out the coffee? Would you not burn your hands beyond belief? In a real-world scenario, all of these limitations might render the pot useless, but in the world of creativity, who even cares?
When we allow ourselves to move beyond the desire for perfection, we open up space for creativity to flourish in ways we hadn’t expected. The unplanned (or initially unnoticed) can become the very thing that makes a piece stand out, that gives it character and depth.
In the pursuit of perfection, we can sometimes lose sight of the beauty that exists in the imperfect, the unfinished, the flawed. But when we embrace these elements, we allow our creativity to take us to new places—places we might never have reached if everything had gone according to plan.
