JR Ryan

I designed the Meater (Meat Meter) to be a fun, interactive, desirable, high quality and technologically sophisticated way to raise awareness and social capital for the issues of meat over production, food waste and agri-pollution.

The solution I came up with uses a smart smartphone accessory. That is to say a smartphone accessory that is itself smart.

The target market for this is young technologically hip and socially conscious adults and teens - people who love their iPhones and Galaxy's equally as much as they worry about the future of the planet. These people are important trend-setters and early adopters, and are often at a loss as to how they can turn their concerns into action, and even if they did, their is a prevailing sense of having to drag the rest of the world kicking and screaming along with them. Making the issues fun - and creating talking points through a physical product that is often on public display - gives people a more direct way to engage with the issues and spread the word.

The product is in two parts: one physical and one app/web based. The physical product serves 4 purposes: As a piece of contemporary phone jewellery, made from gold plated contacts and high quality recyclable frosted glass, it serves to portray a certain status to the users peers (eco-minded, tech-savvy, subcultural); as a dust cover for a phone's headphone jack; as an analogue signal booster for better headphone quality, and as a means to track and communicate your progress and the progress of other peers towards the goal of eating less meat through interacting with the phone app via the 3.5mm jack.. The software is a branded version of the social goal setting, tracking and supporting social app Super Better. Super Better uses game dynamics and social networking to provide a fun and engaging way to achieve real world goals through collaboration and support with other peers on the network.