cM Donald’s (2024)

Food Design (Fast Food) / Utensil Design / Burger Design 

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What if McDonald's is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine?

cM Donald's reimagines the McDonald's franchise through the lens of “Food as Medicine” based on Traditional Chinese Medicine.

cM Donald's embodies the concept of "Food as Medicine" from Traditional Chinese Medicine and other practices in Chinese culture (such as Feng Shui, Qi, etc.) to bring regimen and heterogeneity to the fast-food culture.

In this project, McDonald's is shifted from a restaurant that represents efficiency, calculability, and predictability to a place where people seek "Qi", balancing the quality of vital energy and pursuing every individual's compatibility with food. I've designed a series of menus, burgers, trays, and utensils.

The menus and burgers in cM Donald’s were connected with different pulse categories and the whole ordering system was redesigned. There are 28 kinds of pulse in total. I split those pulses into five types according to the three main food therapeutic principles deconstruct the current McDonald’s meal, label each ingredient with TCM features, and develop three forms of burgers, cooling, heating, and the BU(補） burger models. When people order food, they choose burgers and other foods that suit their health conditions based on their pulse type.

The design of the tray is inspired by the Feng Shui compass and keeps the essential components, like compass, diagrams and aesthetics. The concentric rings on the tray paper illustrate the relationship between the Qi, food and our bodies.

The burger and drinking utensils try to create a balance of Qi on the tray. The shape of the drinking utensil represents the river, whose nature is Yin. The burger utensil's shape means the mountain, whose nature is Yang. The patterns on the utensils are a series of combinations of traditional patterns and some original designs, which I extracted from the existing McDonald's visual languages and reinterpreted. The patterns for each type of burger vary based on the ingredients used in the burger itself. The utensils are made of green translucent acrylic material. On one hand, acrylic is a sustainable and recyclable material; on the other hand, choosing green matte acrylic aims to simulate the texture of jade, which is the key artistic medium in traditional Chinese culture.




以中医“药食同源”理论重新设计快餐厅

中医常讲： “药食同源，食为药补”。食物除了果腹，还可以使之为药，用以养生。

但是，在现代快节奏的生活和高压力的环境下，快餐往往成为人们就餐的首要选择。在快餐店的语境里，食物只是被高效标准化生产出的商品，快速消除食客饥饿的物质。而在后疫情时代，随着人们对于健康的注重和对饮食的要求提高，作为来自中国的食物设计师，Leyu 注意到中医食疗在这种社会背景下的现代应用意义。如果快餐店以中医食疗理论为内核，公众即可在快餐店通过食物进行养生。

在cM Donald’s项目中，Leyu 基于中医中的药食同源理念，从中医信仰体系出发，对快餐店给出了全新的诠释并进行重新设计。在这个设计项目里，快餐店的定义将从一个代表高效率、高标准化和一致性的餐厅转变为一个强调养生，食饮有节，阴阳平衡的场所。Leyu并为cM Donld’s 设计了菜单，汉堡，托盘和餐具。

重新设计过后的菜单将汉堡与不同的脉搏类别联系起来，并形成全新的点餐系统。中医理论中，脉搏共有 28 种。Leyu 根据三大食疗原则将这些脉象分为五类，并解构了当前的快餐餐点，为每种配料贴上中医特色的标签，并开发出三种形式的汉堡，即凉汉堡、热汉堡和“补”汉堡。人们在点餐时，会根据自己的脉搏类型来选择适合自己脉搏和身体状况的汉堡和其他食物。

托盘的设计灵感来自于风水罗盘。在其中间的同心圆纹样解释了按照中医理论食物食材和我们身体的对应关系。汉堡和饮料的餐具的形状代表着山脉和河流,分别象征着阳和阴。这样设计的日的是为了创造在托盘上的气的平衡。餐具的纹样根据中国传统纹样和现有的快餐店图案进行重新设计和组合。每种汉堡的餐具会根据汉堡本身的用料不同而样有所变化。餐具的材料是青绿色亚克力。一方面,亚克力是一种可持续重复利用的材料;另一方面,选取青绿色的亚克力是为了模拟玉器的质感。