I love a good mug. Specifically, I love a good diner mug. A mass produced, chunky, chipped lip, coffee stained mug instantly brings me memories of eating at a Waffle House on a family road trip between Florida and Mississippi, or a bleary eyed trip to an all night diner during my younger, wilder days. I have a library of mugs I have appropriated from diners, cafeterias, and thrift shops on the shelves of my studio. They are not pretty, but they are built to last and the ones I gravitate towards have a ratio between the handle and the mug are often ergonomically perfect but visually unbalanced. This mug is a love letter to these quotidian, working class heroes of the beverage world.
I originally designed these mugs several years ago as part of the opening for Danny Meyer’s coffee shop concept Daily Provisions. I count it a real achievement in my design career to have designed a mug for an actual New York coffee shop, just like the places featured endlessly on TV and movies as part of the fabric of the daily lives there. We had so many people reach out to us after using one of these mugs at Daily Provisions that we knew we had to have it available on our website.
