Monster Vending

Between 2016 and 2018 I designed Monster Vending end to end — brand identity, the physical machine, and the full vending experience around it.

It was a deeply challenging project: my first real foray into industrial design, on a machine of significant scale. The work had to weave together mechanical transport for efficient ordering and pickup, while tying a large embedded touchscreen, a mobile app, and the physical hardware into one continuous flow.

On the software side I built in a couple of less-obvious moves: pre-order pickup, where users pay in advance and simply scan to collect at the machine; and a priority-queue algorithm that handled flash-sale rushes — deciding pickup order fairly when multiple buyers were waiting at once.

I built the brand from zero to one. Beyond brand, industrial design, software, and the hardware/software seam, the project also leaned on user research and behavior analysis — a genuinely cross-discipline build.

The machines are now deployed at select locations in Beijing and at several airports across China.