Glass. Steel. Rubber.
The rubber seals the glass. The steel secures the rubber. Everyone still with me? Good.
The humble canning jar is a beautifully elegant piece of technology that gets overlooked by most on a daily basis, but a closer inspection reveals a considerable amount of thought applied to its design. Today, I'll be looking at two competing designs, the Ball jar, southern kitchen staple and preferred drinking vessel of hipsters everywhere, and the Weck jar, a long time alternative that's finally catching on in America, especially in higher-end grocery stores and cottage industries. The two accomplish the same purpose, but in very different ways, and in doing so, espouse different philosophies on design, manufacturing, and functionality.
Let's begin with the more familiar Ball mason jar (or Kerr jar, depending on your locality.) The mason jar has been kicking around since the 1850's, and has a long, if somewhat dull history. It was invented to facilitate the newly understood process of heat-based canning, a paradigm shift for food systems of the time. The jar itself is roughly cylindrical, regardless of size, with a short threaded section at the top, featuring coarse, chunky threads. These were a product of the time; glassblowing techniques of the era were unable to form threads precise enough to create an airtight seal. Instead, the threads mate with a thin steel ring, which applies downward pressure on the lid, the underside of which features a rubber seal. There isn't anything inherently wrong with the process, but it isn't perfect either. The most notable shortcoming is the limited lifespan of the seals themselves. Each lid is intended to be used only once, and then thrown away, lest the rubber seal begin to erode from heat and friction. Not the most sustainable solution. The steel rings are also rather flimsy, but their flimsiness is indicative of a larger problem, their near superfluousness once a seal is achieved and the lid is held on by the vacuum in the jar. My biggest complaint, however, is the fact that the jars aren't stackable when empty. In my mind, this was a huge oversight in their design from a programmatic point of view. These jars were used by subsistence farmers, to preserve food to keep themselves alive through the winter. It would follow that the jars should be able to be stored easily until the next harvest, but the empty vessels are very unstable when stacked without their lids, and stacked with their lids replaced and sealed, they can encourage the growth of harmful bacteria (which to be fair, should be killed when the jars are next sterilized, but is still concerning.)
Now for the Weck Jar. Right off the bat, the differences in use of materials are striking. Instead of large metal parts, the use of steel is reserved to a pair of small clips, which hold the lid in place by acting as springs. The seal is a thick, confidence inspiring piece of (BPA-free) rubber, dwarfing the essentially non-dimensional rubber coating on the mason jar. These jars come in a much wider variety of shapes and sizes, but at least one shape is capable of being stacked, allowing purchasers to decide for themselves whether or not a more decorative shape is worth the sacrifice in cabinet space. The lids are also stackable, and the rubber seals are reusable. But the Weck jar isn't without its own faults. The mason jar's lid is effortless to seat properly, and after its contents have cooled, the button on top is sucked into the jar, providing a visual confirmation that the jar is preforming as it should be. The Weck jar has no such indicator, and its seal must be carefully aligned before securing the lid.
I should clarify, I personally believe both of these products to be useful, but neither is perfectly fit for its purpose. Both live up to the Vitruvian ideals of utilitas, and in my opinion venustas, but the Ball jar is always going to fall short in firmitas, or durability. The disposable nature of it's lids and rings is a philosophy I just can't get behind. I don't want to stand on my soapbox for too long, but using materials in excess just because they're available isn't good design, it's laziness. We've known better since the Victorian era. Glass is easy enough to recycle, so that's more or less a non-issue, but the Weck jar uses far less metal, and its rubber component is designed to have a much longer life, giving a solid win in the durability category. The Weck jar also offers an entirely different opening experience. It's tab gives the jar a definite orientation, "This end towards user," and the motion of grasping the rounded edges of the glass lid and lifting it is a much more positive sensory experience than the feeling of glass scraping on metal as a ring is unscrewed, followed by the digging of a sharp metal edge into one's hand. Intentional or not, opening a Weck jar feels like opening a package, gingerly prepared, and the Ball jar relegates the user to the role of an unfeeling machine, unscrewing one component before being injured by another.
These products were both designed to accomplish the same purpose, but approached this problem from very different directions. The mason jar was a product of modern industry through and through, responding to the production processes available at its conception to create an inexpensive, mass-produced object. The Weck jar was crafted to be the best tool available for a given purpose, though its fitness for purpose came at the some cost. Whether because of their lower output or some other hidden cost, Weck jars are considerably more expensive than mason jars (at the time of publishing, they cost roughly three to four times as much per jar via Amazon,) but for a home cook who uses the jars frequently, I think the expense can be justified. That being said, mason jars are perfectly serviceable, and are used by countless people every day without incident. Neither solution is perfect, but both are right.
I took a religion course freshman year, and one thing that really stuck with me was a metaphor used by the teacher. He said different world religions were all trying to dig a hole to enlightenment. They all start in different spots, but if you keep at it long enough, you'll eventually wind up in the same place. I think design is much the same way. Messrs. Weck and Ball had two very different designs, but over time they were tweaked and refined until both proved adequate for their purpose. They employed materials differently, and utilized different production processes, but none of that really matters. They had a program, and they stuck to it, until they felt that their requirements had been satisfied. That's what design is. It doesn't have to be planned or sketched or rendered, it has to be lived and used and experienced, so that it can be understood, so that it can be improved.
This might be a good time to segue into the real reason rapid prototyping technologies are so exciting (Spoiler alert: because the resulting prototypes can be experienced, and that's really important,) but that's a topic for another blog post. My fingers are tired. I try to make an effort to really look at the things surrounding me, the familiar objects I interact with every day. How many of these things are really, thoughtfully designed? How many of these are appreciated? Below, I'll link a few sources of inspiration behind this post, makers of things whose form and function are hopelessly intertwined, or people who give well-informed critiques of overlooked or otherwise under-appreciated objects. I encourage any readers out there to check them out, then try to catalog a few things you use frequently, and see if you can't take a long, hard look at them to find a little reasoning behind them, or some room for improvement.
Arduino versus Evil - BOLTR: Makita's New Hypoid Saw (Warning: adult language and heavy use of Canadian idioms)
EngineerGuy - The Ingenious Design of the Aluminium Beverage Can
Florian Gadsby - Potter, Maze Hill Pottery (Check out the captions, homeboy can write)
Matthias Wandel - Ramekin Serving Tray