Ball Corporation and Minalba Brasil have won Fast Company's 2024 Innovation by Design Award in the Latin America category for their braille-embossed aluminium can lid. This innovative lid, the first of its kind in the Brazilian market, features braille options for both water ("agua") and sparkling water ("agua gas").
"We teamed up with Minalba Brasil to help remedy a prevalent yet complex issue in the visually impaired community: reading can labels. Together, we created an aluminium can with a braille-embossed lid that helps individuals with visual impairments know what they're grabbing from the cooler," said Ball Corporation.
About the significant breakthrough
Hugo Magalhães, Ball's Global Director of Marketing, explained that this breakthrough is significant because braille is traditionally designed for flat surfaces and read from left to right. In contrast, the aluminium cans are circular, making determining a clear starting point challenging. Magalhães explained that the lid offers only a five-centimetre area for embossing, which presents a challenge. Ensuring the readability and quality of braille within such a limited space requires careful design and precision.
"The size of the dot and the distance have to be readable. We can easily emboss an image on a can, but braille is different," said Hugo Magalhães. To address this challenge, the team had to be extremely precise with the spacing and size of the braille cells. Any deviation could result in the message being misinterpreted. They utilised both sides of the tab and embossed the braille from left to right along the lid's curved surface.
Positive attribute of the project
Camila Vila Verde, Ball's Regional Marketing Manager for South America, found the project rewarding despite the difficulty. She recounted to Fast Company how she recently encountered a blind woman during a run where braille-embossed cans were distributed. The woman expressed that having such a product on the market was essential.
"As the first in the Brazilian market, our braille-embossed lid offers two options: water (agua) and sparkling water (agua gas). This was a difficult undertaking, as can lids are circular, which can prove confusing for languages like braille, which are read left to right. Being precise with the size of dots and distance between dots was crucial to relaying the correct message for readers. We worked with the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind, an expert organisation in Brazil, to ensure that our braille-embossed lid follows the standards for braille in terms of legibility. We believe this innovation can help improve the drinking experience for visually impaired individuals and spur more progress in can design," added Ball Corporation.
Precision in dot size and spacing was crucial to conveying the correct message to readers. Ball collaborated with the Fundação Dorina Nowill para Cegos (the Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind), an expert organisation in Brazil, to ensure that the braille-embossed lid adhered to the standards for braille legibility.
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