Box Vox

packaging as content

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March 16, 2011

UPC as Package Proxy

Prints-kelloggscornflakes

While I’m not that into all of Bernard Solco’s creative output (His “pop” portraits of celebrities seem to skew Republican.) I do like these UPC prints from his “Symbology” series.

Does the barcode on the wall, serve as a proxy for a decoratively-problematic corn flakes package? Pop Art for people with Minimalist sensibilities?

Although Solco does go to considerable effort to put his work in a Pop Art context:

All editions are printed by the artist and Alexander Heinrici in his studio in NYC. Heinrici is a “Master Printer” whose expertise was also utilized by Andy Warhol for the Campbell’s soup can series…

MorePrints Top left: Welch’s Grape Jelly Print; on right: Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup Print; lower left: Fedex Code Print; on right: Kodak Film Print

It’s easy to imagine how Solco’s blending of abstraction and brand-specificity might appeal to corporate art collections…

“Bernard Solco has painted more than 60 UPC Barcode Paintings for private and corporate collectors such as Kodak, America Online, and Tim Smucker.”

…but the general public has also embraced this sort of thing—barcodes, and other opaque symbols, as fashion and decor. (See: Consumed Column, Style Decoder)

Why is this? These codes may contain all sorts of data, but the information is not readily accessible to the naked eye. Yes, barcodes & QR codes can be scanned and decoded with the right smart phone app, but that doesn’t explain their popularity as decorative patterns.

I think it’s precisely because we can’t just read their information that they are popular. Unlike a television commercial whose commercial message you involuntarily absorb, encoded information you don’t have to receive unless (for some reason) you want to.

Until decoded, these are just abstract patterns and you get to remain blissfully ignorant of any content they might contain. (Unless its meaning is explicitly spelled out, as it is in Solco’s Kellogg’s Corn Flakes UPC)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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