Cohesive Design for a Flagship Coffee Machine
for AYISRA TECH
2022 - 2023
#productdesign #interfacedesign #Vendingmachine #msme
#Flagshipdesign #coffee
" Can you help us with some design that could help us position ourselves as a brand "
- Vinay Shetty , CEO
Context & Product Opportunity
An industry veteran in the coffee vending sector launched a new venture to manufacture products of global standards for the export market. While the company was already producing machines for clients, they wanted to develop a flagship product—a bean-to-cup espresso machine with a 7” touch-enabled display.
The flagship needed to serve multiple purposes: showcase their capability, establish a strong global brand identity, and drive sales in a highly competitive category. With in-house engineering expertise but limited design resources, the client approached us through reference to shape the product’s design and experience.
SCOPE OF WORK
Product Design
Interaction Design
THE CHALLENGE
Designing a Brand Flagship on a Budget
A flagship product is more than a machine—it is a representation of a company’s values, vision, and promise. Large corporates often invest heavily in building this layer of communication; for MSMEs, the challenge is greater. Differentiation and recall are not luxuries but necessities to stand out in a crowded category like coffee vending machines.
Our task was to design an espresso machine that could embody the client’s brand values while delivering a seamless, intuitive, and premium experience—across both the physical product and the digital interface , in a budget.
Design strategy
The art of
looking between the lines
We believed that simply “looking good” was not enough. The product needed to stand out strategically - to communicate a bold expression that resonated with coffee’s identity as a drink of energy, pace, and ambition.
Our insight came from comparing beverage cultures:
-
Chai drinkers are often associated with a laid-back, reflective rhythm.
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Coffee drinkers, by contrast, embody energy, drive, and action.
In a market crowded with machines that looked and felt the same, this distinction became our edge. We set out to design a holistic experience—form, interface, and brand touchpoints—that embodied the energy of coffee culture, while being practical and manufacturable within MSME constraints.
TEA
COFFEE
GIVING SHAPE TO INSIGHT
Balancing
Functionality,
Viability + Visual
Character
Given the client’s limited tooling and cautious outlook, we worked on concepts which could be achieved through budget sheet metal fabrication and limited plastic moulding.
The machine’s form was designed around multi-faceted surfaces — bold strokes and edges that signalled energy and confidence. This language extended seamlessly to the integrated bean hopper and milk container, creating a unified look.
Adding to the form, an earthy palette wasn't only a departure from the category's chrome-and-steel convention — it introduced warmth against the raw, mechanical act of grinding and extraction, keeping the product approachable rather than clinical.
Product
Design
Design Integration
Interface
Design
Later, we extended the design philosophy into the digital realm, ensuring both hardware and software felt like one coherent system.
On the user flow it was ensured that every interaction is looped, whether it is the consumer or the service and management while keeping it minimal and focused with a character.
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For employees, the experience was designed to be intuitive and engaging. Custom-crafted coffee icons with fine details reflected the product’s bold philosophy, while earthy backgrounds softened the interface and avoided a “tech-heavy” feel. Icon sizing, layout, and bold strokes reinforced speed and clarity in the selection process.
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For service staff, a dedicated black-background interface clearly differentiated the functional mode. The flow minimized screen changes, while chamfered buttons with bold edges provided quick navigation. By layering the service interface within the main system, we ensured that both audiences accessed their needs seamlessly without compromising the experience for either.
The coffee icons
Starting with the coffee icons , we made custom designs in line with the language . Details like mist , foam and vapour made the icons more real while the varying sizes made it experiential.
For making coffee
We added subtle stoke lines and chamfers to the layout and balanced the aggressiveness with tap friendly buttons shapes.
For Service staff
We gave a dynamic effect to the tabs complimenting the overall form factor and gain balanced it with linear rows and columns.
THE DETAILS
For errors, cautions and machine responses we used pop-ups which carried similar wedge shaped elements , making it part of the whole architecture.
INTEGRATING THE INTERACTIONS
The service interactions was smartly hidden/merged with the bottom date section of the consumer interaction and could be activated with a double tap.
Final Design
A cohesive &
coherent design
language
This final execution fuses bold design language with meaningful UX—achieving a standout presence while maintaining functional clarity for both users and service staff.
Outcome
The final design gave Aysira Tech a bold, differentiated expression that secured a contract with an Indian conglomerate to deploy machines across corporate cafeterias.
The outcome also gave the client confidence to secure copyrights for all three design concepts we presented — extending their coffee machine line with a consistent design language. This trust further led to us being commissioned for their next project, strengthening a long-term collaboration.
Through this project, design moved beyond aesthetics to become a strategic tool for market positioning, giving an MSME the confidence and credibility to play on a global stage.
It was nice working with Sandeep since last 4 years on our coffee vending machine designing projects for industrial designing and he is an outstanding industrial designer and out of the box thinker. He is well aware of the design trends in the domestic and international market and he is an excellent human being. I really enjoyed working with him and we will be working on many more projects in days to come.
Vinay Shetty , CEO
AYISRA TECH PVT. LTD.
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