Box Vox

packaging as content

June 7, 2011

Bottles from Dead Horse Bay

GroupShot

For your uncapped-landfill viewing pleasure: here are the bottles, jars and one glass syringe that I selected from Sunday’s trip to the beach. Mud washed out but still with a patina of algae. And a few barnacles.

We’ll take a closer look at a few of these during the next few days. (It’s curated Dead Horse Bay bottle week on box vox!)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 6, 2011

Bottle Beach

NaturallyGood All photos ©2011 Debby Davis

I’d read about this place awhile back in Elizabeth Royte’s book, Garbage Land, but it hadn’t occured to me that we could actually go there until reading this entry last week in The Freshkills Park e-newsletter:

Once a pristine barrier island, Barren Island played host to horse rendering plants and fish oil factories in the 19th century; the island was connected to Brooklyn by filled land in the 1920s to create Floyd Bennett Field. A landfill established in 1953 began spilling its contents into Dead Horse Bay in the early 1980s, leaving thousands of artifacts along the beach daily. The area is now part of the Gateway Recreation Area and draws year-round explorers and amateur historians combing the beach for treasures from the past.

So yesterday we went there and crunched along this beach of broken glass, so happy not to be barefoot. Debby took these photos and I did my post-apocalyptic version of shell collecting.

Note: I found this recording online of this beach that includes some of the walking on glass sound…


Dead Horse Bay — Walking on Bottle Beach by trustynick

Most of the bottles and jars are broken, but there are still plenty that are completely intact. Lots of amber clorox bottles predating the now more iconic white jugs.

Few bottles or jars have any labeling. Whether painted or paper, most signs of branding have worn away. Except for an occasional embossed logo.

BottleBeach1

BottleBeach2

BottleBeach3

With such an extensive amount of bottles, I had to quickly reset my calculus for choosing what to pick up. I went for intact, relatively scarce (no amber Clorox bottles) with a variety of shapes and embossed details. More to come about my selections another day. Maybe tomorrow.

(A couple more photos, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 3, 2011

Older Guys with Record Player Cars (3 Kinds)

OlderGuysCarRecordPlayers

While looking at engine-shaped recordings, I noticed that there were three kinds of record-player car:

A. cars with built-in record players…

The video does not show this car’s owner, but I consider bandleader, Lawrence Welk to be the spiritual father of the onboard car record-player. (Since he appears in 1956 ads as a spokeman for the new gadget)

B. toy cars that play records… 

There’s lots of “vinyl killer” commentary about this device but I like the appreciative “Record Runner” video from Grand Illusions the best. The gent demonstrating is Tim Rowett.

C. cars that are made out of record players…

This would make a better story, visually, if the record player parts that Martin Gutierrez Sandoval had used to customize his VW were more signifying of record players—like say the turntables or the stylus arms—but whatever part that is that he had 2,470 of (by the time he had retired from the Gerrard record player factory) they do give his ultra-ventilated car, a delicately lacy look.

Interesting that 2 out of 3 of our record-player cars are VW. (See Also: Volkswagen Box)

About the older guys: the only question in my mind is “Which kind do I want to be?”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 2, 2011

Motor-Shaped Music Packaging

EngineShapedMusicPacks

And as long as we’ve brought up engine-shaped beverage packaging, it’s also worth noting that there are also some engine-shaped music packages out there.

On left, from 1986, a Mike and the Mechanics engine-shape 45 “picture disk.” (See a photo of the back at Newtown Rare Records)

On right, one of a series of “American Motorcycles” motor-shaped CDs from UMAP Team Berlin. Housed in conventional CD jewel boxes, the CDs, in this case, are shaped like motorcycle engines…

AmericanMotorCycles

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 1, 2011

6-Pack Pistons

PistonPacks

On left: Juan Pablo Vildosola’s RPM Energy Drink concept (via: Packaging of the World) On right: BeOriginal’s packaging for a 3-step engine revitalizer 3-pack.

Both of these packages are piston-like, but not being much of an automotive guy, I hadn’t realize that there were already beverage pack associations built into the language of old school car culture—namely, “six pack pistons.”

And motor oil—particularly outboard motor oil—has often been sold in six-packs…

RPM-400

Dig the pop tops illustration on the orthographically-projected top view. (via: Worthpoint)

VictoryTopCylinderOil

Another vintage 6-pack carrier for motor oil. This pack has an odd polyhedral contradiction since it shows a large pyramid, but its words say “cylinder.” (via)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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