As a courier recipient, bubble wrap (aka bubble wrap) is simply a commonplace, everyday item that can cause us anxiety when a seller wraps a few layers short of bubble wrap.
Even if you don't send or move, just squeezing the bubbles on top of the bubble wrap and hearing the "poof" can be a great relief - a phenomenon that has been proven by scientists through research.
But bubble wrap, now 65 years old, started out as a "failed product" that nobody wanted.
Yet in the present day, improved technology that no longer allows bubble wrap to be squeezed can make Musk, the world's richest man, exclaim, "This is clearly a sign of the end of the world!
A design studio has taken the bubble wrap used to wrap objects as inspiration for several products, including phone cases, gamepads, keyboards, and luggage, and the 'gasp' is that the 'bubbles' can't be squeezed!
Packaged "product" it becomes the "product" to be packaged
Earlier this year, a keyboard called the Air Type hit the web. It wasn't even a photo of the real thing, just a realistic 3D rendering, and it was enough to make a bunch of people gasp.
The product name Air Type points out the best feature of this keyboard - 'typing in the air'. Each keycap on the keyboard has a bubble wrap bubble-like surface, and when your finger touches the keys, it feels like you're touching soft bubble wrap in your hand.
These keycaps with elasticity are not meant for you to squeeze through for relief (in fact these inflatable surfaces are very solid), but to enhance comfort - what a blessing it would be for people who spend long hours typing to be able to 'type in the air'.
Gaurav Sood, the editor of Yanko Design, whose finger was injured by the keys of a Dell laptop keyboard, also wished that the design studio could bring this design to life in his lifetime.
▲ Air Type Keyboard. Image via: Instagram @design_burger
The overall look of the keyboard is also quite simple and clean, with a fully transparent base with 3 components, also fully transparent, attached to the surface inflatable keycaps with a screw construction. If you had an iMac next to it, you'd think this was Apple's own design.
▲ Air Type Keyboard. Image via: Instagram @design_burger
The design studio behind the keyboard is Running Guy, headed by London-based product designer Philipp Pisarevskiy.
The workshop then went on to design metal luggage that was already wrapped in bubble wrap, using the Geneva luggage as a prototype. If this luggage could be produced, there would be no need to worry about broken luggage in the future.
▲ Air Bubble Film Concept Luggage. Image via: Instagram @running_guy_studio
Going back to the original design of this line of inflatable products, it doesn't look that much like bubble wrap.
The first inflatable product design is the gamepad PlayStation AirShock, with an inflatable body that encases the necessary controls and blue LEDs.
▲ PlayStation AirShock Gamepad. Image from: Behance
Transported flat, it can be inflated to a size suitable for use by inflating the nozzle on the back of the device. It's comfortable to the touch and can be dropped when you lose a game, but it won't break anyway.
▲ PlayStation AirShock Gamepad. Image from: Behance
Looking at this gamepad from the back, it bears some resemblance to an inflatable neck pillow, so maybe in the future, two mismatched things, a gamepad and an inflatable neck pillow, can be made into one product.
▲ PlayStation AirShock Gamepad. Image from: Behance
The sponsor behind this design is not to be underestimated, it is the German gamepad company Shootshoots, which has few products on the shelf and focuses on custom gamepad designs according to customers' specific requirements.
▲ PlayStation AirShock Gamepad. Image from: Behance
Philipp's most satisfying design, however, has to be the bubble wrap iPhone case, which is the only design in the bubble wrap collection that has been made into a production-ready, quantifiable prototype.
Philipp went to a lot of trouble to make this case. Leaving aside the prep and process research, five iterations of the prototype alone were made.
The first version of the method is somewhat similar to the bubble wrap process, using hot air to form the key, but the quality of the result is mediocre.
▲ Version 1 (pictured left) and Version 2 (pictured right). Image from: Behance
▲ Version 3 (pictured left) and version 4 (pictured right). Image from: Behance
Next, new tools and methods were tried gradually to improve accuracy, solidity and reduce time, and finally in version 5 a high quality version was made good enough to be produced.
Philipp even ended his Instagram post about the beloved design with - "By the way, does Uniqlo want to collaborate?"
Find the right niche and the failed product becomes the best invention in seconds
The bubble wrap, which seems to "wrap" everything, was not designed for packaging in the first place.
In 1957, two American engineers - Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes - invented and designed a three-dimensional textured wallpaper.
To make this wallpaper, they also developed a machine that went to make plastic wallpaper with a paper backing. The result was that this machine could only create sheets of plastic wrapped in a small bubble, which was the precursor to today's bubble wrap. Unfortunately, when this new wallpaper was introduced to the market, it went virtually unnoticed.
▲ Alfred W. Fielding and Mark Chavannes, who invented bubble wrap. Photo from: Sealed Air
They didn't give up on the invention, and with the help of Fielding's wife, who is also a patent expert, they patented both the machine and the process.
Because of the new material's light weight and insulating properties, bubble wrap was reintroduced as insulation for greenhouses, but again it failed.
Whether it was wallpaper or conservatory insulation, the market was already very mature at the time, so naturally bubble wrap, which had no absolute advantage and did not look advanced, was not a 'latecomer'.
But the two failures didn't discourage the engineers, and they founded Sealed Air Corporation in 1960, creating the Bubble Wrap brand name, which later became the direct English name for bubble wrap.
It wasn't until three years after the birth of bubble wrap that Frederick W. Bowers, the company's in-house marketing expert, found the right niche for the invention - a packaging material with a great cushioning effect.
Browns approached IBM on behalf of the company, and with a demonstration of the package, IBM was immediately impressed and became IBM was immediately impressed and became Sealed Air's first major customer.
Previously, newspaper, wood shavings and horse hair would be used to pack fragile items. Can you imagine a computer buried inside a pile of wood shavings and horse hair? Even simply using newspaper is not a good idea.
Newspaper ink at the time was very poorly fixed and often rubbed off on the product, so removing the ink stains after receiving the product became a 'common occurrence' for the recipient in those days.
It just so happened that the IBM 1401 was a huge seller at the time, reaching 10,000 units sold in the 1960s - almost half the number of computers in the world at the time.
The bubble wrap traveled around the world with the computer, and small and medium-sized packaging companies quickly embraced the new product, praising it as a "godsend".
Growing orders did not make Sealed Air profitable, as the two company founders were too obsessed with their inventions to take an interest in running the company. It wasn't until TJ Dermot Dunphy became Sealed Air's CEO in 1971 that the problem improved significantly and bubble wrap grew into a large family of packaging supplies.
In TJ Dermot Dunphy's first year at the company, annual sales were $5 million, and by the year 2000, the year he left, that sales figure had become $3 billion.
▲ TJ Dermot Dunphy. photo from: nj.com
Today Sealed Air is a Fortune 500 company, and the two engineers who invented bubble wrap are in the American Inventors Hall of Fame along with Albert Einstein.
Two innovations since 2010 have also led to viable solutions to 2 of bubble wrap's most significant problems.
From a merchant's perspective, bubble wrap is expensive to transport over long distances due to its huge size after inflation, and even if it is placed in a warehouse, it can result in high warehouse storage costs.
So in 2015, Hill & Knowlton introduced a new product, iBubble Wrap, delivered in a flat state that can be filled with air using a custom pump when it needs to be used. This new product takes up 1/50th of the area of traditional bubble wrap in transit.
However, the inflated iBubble Wrap is different from traditional bubble wrap in that those bubbles cannot be squeezed through, much to the dismay of fans who like to squeeze bubble wrap.
▲ Comparison of the new product iBubble Wrap (pictured left) and traditional bubble wrap (pictured right). Image from: Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
From the user's point of view, traditional bubble wrap is still quite laborious and laborious to pack up and use with tools.
Kawakami Sangyo, known for manufacturing and selling bubble wrap in Japan, launched the square bubble wrap Spa Spa in 2021, which can be torn open by hand, and designers Koji Sato and Atsuhi Yokoi won the GOOD DESIGN award for this revolutionary design.
Because of its grid-like square appearance, this bubble wrap is also great for measuring, which naturally reduces unnecessary packaging waste. Moreover, the bubble wrap has become more environmentally friendly, with approximately 80% of it being recyclable.
The inestimable cultural value behind bubble wrap
Air bubble film not only comes with great commercial value, but also because of the pleasant banging sound of squeezing air bubbles, gradually digging out more business opportunities, is a rare potential stock.
The bubble wrap squeezing thing alone has developed into a culture known as POP Culture (a name clash with pop culture).
▲ Image from: American comedy movie "Whitehead 3
▲ Squeezing bubble wrap for G Dragon. image from: Giphy
The whole bubble wrap squeezing thing has also turned into an event and a competition. On the Guinness World Records website, there is a record for the most people squeezing bubble wrap at the same time - in 2015, there were 2,681 kids on site squeezing bubble wrap at the same time as part of the Boy Scouts' annual campout. This record has not been broken to date.
The last Sunday of January is designated as National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day to celebrate the birth of bubble wrap, and there is usually a bubble wrap squeezing contest on that day as well.
Is it possible to squeeze the bubble wrap without much effort and at the same time quickly?
Designer Matt Benedetto created a belt buckle, the Burst Your Bubble Belt Buckle™ - a bit like the hand-cranked pencil sharpeners we used to use, just turn the little disc on the side with your hand and you can hear the bubble wrap being squeezed continuously. The design went on to make the list of 'unnecessary designs that took the internet by storm'.
Want to have an endless supply of bubble wrap to squeeze?
Bandai, a major Japanese toy supplier, has designed Mugen Puchipuchi, a keychain accessory that makes a banging sound similar to squeezing bubble wrap when you press the bubble wrap-looking accessory.
▲ Mugen Puchipuchi. photo from: ebay
Another bubble wrap-like toy, Pop It, became popular again last year due to the background of the home quarantine epidemic and a popular Tik Tok video, making it the most popular small toy abroad today. pop It comes in two sides and can be flipped over after squeezing one side to continue, also satisfying the user's desire to keep squeezing bubbles.
▲ The Tik Tok video that made Pop It toys famous. Image via: YouTube @Mrs. Bench
Want to feel the thrill of squeezing bubble wrap even when you don't have it?
Realistic bubble wrap squeezing games like Bubble Wrap can be found in the app stores for both iPhone and Android.
Could the squeeze bubble wrap be made more meaningful by design?
Bubble wrap with goldfish printed on it, bubble wrap calendars with numbers printed on them, and bubble wrap inspired curated ads were created.
▲ Creative ad for bubble wrap by relocation specialists Crown Movers. Image from: Behance
Bubble wrap also excels in the field of art.
Artist Bradley Hart injects acrylic paint into bubbles of bubble wrap to create pixelated new versions of famous paintings such as "Mona Lisa," "Van Gogh Self-Portrait" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring.
▲ The process of creating with bubble wrap. Photo from: YouTube @On Demand News
The same method can be used to make a beautiful DIY dessert if you switch to injecting liquid jelly. The 26-second bubble wrap dessert tutorial video has been a huge hit on YouTube, with over 830,000 views and an even better number of comments and likes.
Surprisingly, bubble wrap also has a pretty impressive report card in the fashion industry.
American actress Farrah Fawcett, who has the body of an athletic beauty, was on the cover of Playboy (PLAYBOY) in 1997 wearing only bubble wrap.
Farrah Fawcett on the cover of Playboy wearing only bubble wrap. image from: 5miles
In 2010, UK native Rachael Robinson wore a wedding dress made of bubble wrap for her first wedding ceremony.
At London Fashion Week in January 2019, designer Craig Green unveiled a new collection of clothes designed with coloured bubble wrap.
▲ Craig Green 2019 秋冬系列. 图片来自：Hypebeast
In recent years, bubble wrap has been even more active in the innovative design of footwear.
In 2020, MM6 Maison Margiela launches sneakers and heels covered in bubble wrap.
▲ MM6 Maison Margiela air-foam sneakers and boots. Image from: Insider
Last year, Moschino, known for its teddy bears, and German shoe brand nat-2™ also launched new products with bubble wrap-covered uppers.
▲ nat-2™ 气泡膜运动鞋. 图片来自：nat-2™
Moving into the building and space sector, bubble wrap is also full of confidence.
Let's Play! Puti Puti, a bubble wrap theme park in Tachikawa, Tokyo, is open from September 4, 2021 to April 3, 2022. Puti Puti is the Japanese word for the banging sound of squeezing through bubble wrap.
▲ Bubble Wrap Theme Park Let's Play! Puti Puti. Photo from: Play
Fashion designer Kosuke Tsumura, who teaches at Musashino University, led his students in designing this project.
▲ Fashion designer Kosuke Tsumura, who teaches at Musashino University. Image from: Play
▲ Students at work . Photo from: Play
The park is divided into seven areas, including a large 22-meter diameter room where bubble rolls made from bubble wrap are hung. There is also a DIY area where bubble wrap and paint brushes are provided for children to use their wildest ideas.
▲ Bubble Wrap Theme Park Let's Play! Puti Puti. Photo from: Play
Putting aside the complicated technical science and design, bubble wrap gives most people the impression of "safety" - the ability to wrap easily crushed and broken objects for safe delivery.
Brazilian supermarket brand Pãode Açúcar launched a series of ads in 2013 using bubble wrap as an idea to highlight its transport safety.
There's even a claim that wrapping the bubble wrap well also allowed the jumper to survive.
Someone on the US top stream forum Reddit once asked in earnest: "If you wanted to jump out of a window and survive, how many layers of bubble wrap would you need to wrap?"
In 2011, Rhett Allain, an associate professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana University, published an article in the professional journal Wired that used physical equations to rigorously calculate that - wrapped in 39 layers of bubble wrap - one could fall from a six-story building (roughly 20 meters in height) and survive.
But even this professor of physics has said never to test it yourself, you can use a dummy or object instead.
Bubble wrap is cheap, but it protects a lot of expensive and important things well, and that's the most irreplaceable value of this invention. Sometimes an invention or design is not well received, perhaps like bubble wrap, because it has not found its meaning, its niche, and where its competitive advantage lies.
If bubble wrap had continued its efforts to make wallpaper and greenhouse insulation back then, this treasure of a design for packaging would have been buried long ago. Thanks to the two engineers who invented it for not giving up and blazing another trail for this invention, the world has this excellent invention.