Breakfast just got rounder, tastier and more environmentally-efficient with the bagel toaster designed by Kent Madden, a Carleton student and semi-finalist in a contest that attracts design students from all over the world.
Madden, who is entering his fourth year in the industrial design program, created a toaster for the Electrolux Design Lab competition, headquartered in Sweden.
Design students enter by creating household appliances that are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also environmentally friendly and in line with the principles of Scandinavian design.
The winner of the contest will receive 5,000 Euros, or about $6,800 Canadian, as well as a six-month paid internship at the Electrolux design centre in Sweden.
Madden decided to meet the challenge by creating a new kind of bagel toaster that would be smaller and therefore take up less space, he says.
Named after the Latin word for “good morning,” the Salvé toaster is also more portable since it can be taken anywhere — from home, to work, even camping.
“I looked around at what we have in a typical house in North America,” Madden says. “I was just thinking, ‘Toasters: they’re pretty small already, but if we can make it smaller, why not? We have the technology to do so.’ ”
But why a bagel toaster?
Madden says he chose bagels because they’ve become such a popular breakfast food in North America.
But since so many people don’t eat breakfast, he says the Salvé toaster’s convenience factor might get them to start eating that first meal of the day.
“Tons of people skip breakfast these days. I’m one of them and I shouldn’t, but I have a busy student life and sometimes you just have to get to class and you don’t have time so you just grab Tim Horton’s or something,” he says.
“[But bagels] are so easy to prepare, you don’t need a plate and you just hold it in your hand.”
Madden says his toaster is also more environmentally friendly since it runs on sugar batteries, which are easier to dispose of than alkaline batteries.
Charging the toaster has also become simple, since it’s charged through a dock that is plugged into the wall, Madden explained on the competition’s blog. That means the toaster itself doesn’t need a cord.
In late July, Madden and seven others were named finalists, narrowed down from about 1,300 entries and 25 semi-finalists.
Among the finalists, Madden is the only Canadian.
As for what’s next, he says the Salvé toaster has attracted a lot of publicity on design blogs and elsewhere on the Internet, so that will help get his foot in the door with other internships, if the Electrolux one doesn’t work out.
Regardless of the outcome of the contest, Madden says he wants to pursue a career in industrial design.
“In all my classes, I would be doodling in my notebook. I’d be drawing pieces of furniture that I wanted to make in the shop class,” he says.
“I wanted to be creative, but I wanted to do custom work as well. So I studied industrial design because I wanted to get to know the creative side of things.”
Madden and the other semi-finalists will be in London, England this September to explain the inspirations behind their designs. The winner will be announced Sept. 7.
