packaging as content

November 30, 2011

The Entenmann’s Box and Its Discontents

Some websites credit Martha Entenmann with having invented the “see-through” cake box. Other sites (including Entenmann’s) say it was a collaborative effort with her three sons.

Believing that people were more inclined to buy what they can see, the Entenmann’s brothers, William, Robert and Charles, and mother, Martha, invented the familiar “see-through” cake box for baked goods in 1959.

Entenmann’s Direct

This insight transformed Entenmann’s business:

Quality baked goods used to be sold in white paperboard boxes tied with string, and only someone with X-ray vision knew what the treats within actually looked like. Then in 1959 Martha Entenmann, wife of the son of the Entenmann’s bakery founder, had a brainstorm — people were more apt to buy something if they could actually see it. Working with her sons (who’d joined their mom in the family business after serving in the Korean War), she developed the first cake box with a plastic “window.” The new box allowed the company to display its product on standard supermarket shelves, rather than relying on the limited “under glass” space available in independent bakeries. Instead of taking a number and waiting for a busy salesperson, consumers could browse among all the various “see-through” boxes of Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies, powdered doughnuts, and crumb cakes…

Metal Floss

Recent changes to their packaging, however, have now irritated some loyal customers…

(The backlash of the discontents, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 29, 2011

Entenmann’s Box Cake

We’ve featured other package-shaped cakes in the past, but the idea of making a cake, shaped like a box of Entenmann’s Chocolate Fudge Cake, rises to higher level. Adding another whole layer of meaning to the humble sheet cake—(the one-story, “ranch house” of cakes)—these two Entenmann’s cakes raise some philisophical questions… Are they artificial Entenmann’s cakes? Are they edible packages containing real cake?

The term “box cake” is sometimes used to describe cake made from a cake mix, but both of the cakes pictured above are professionally-made custom cakes. In both cases, the whole thing is cake, and yet there’s a window through which you can see “the cake.”

The top cake is a birthday cake and its baker (who I think is based in Connecticut) explains it this way:

“customer wanted me to recreate her husband’s favorite food!”

–My Kids Are Killing Me on CakeCentral.com

The lower cake is a “groom’s cake” by Kate Sullivan of NYC-based, Cake Power:

“…for one Entenmann’s-loving groom, [she] constructed a replica of the supermarket-staple fudge cake, in its well known white-and-blue box, out of white chocolate fondant.”

Cake Power

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

November 28, 2011

Nabisco 12 Pack Cartons

These Nabisco boxes caught my eye at the supermarket for a few reasons…

a. They seem to be trompe l’oeil renditions of wrapped tray packaging—as if we were seeing the inner packs through a layer of Cellophane.

b. As such, they also suggest orthographic packaging, where the contents of a box are projected onto the side panels. I don’t really know how these packets are arranged within, but it appears they are not accurately projected on all sides.

c. Since the package design relies on illustrations of the inner packs to communicate its contents, there is an odd repetition of information when the carton contains only one type of packet. This repetition strikes me as almost Warholian. One box looks like a stack of three. Each box, a microcosm of a stacked supermarket display. The effect is more conventional (less repetitive) when the box contains a variety.

(A few more examples, after the fold…)

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November 25, 2011

Nike & Newport (Swoosh and Spinnaker)

The similarity of Nike’s and Newport’s logo has been well noted. Not a problem between the two companies when shoes and cigarettes are clearly separate industries. But when they get mashed up together, as with Ari Foreman’s 2008 “Ari Menthol” shoes, and are packaged in an oversized flip-top cigarette shoe box…

The Newport symbol, first used in 1969, is called their “spinnaker” logo. Think: sailboats, wind, respiration. (See also: square-rigged sail logo of Banks Beer)

The Nike symbol (their “swoosh” logo) was designed in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson. Think: curvy checkmark, fluid motion, sports.

Another example of a Nike/Newport mash up are a 2009 series of “Nike Newports” by Danny J. Gibson:

I was wondering: has anyone ever mashed it up the other way round—as Nike Cigarettes?

(Asked and answered, after the fold…)

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November 24, 2011

Turkey Bottle

I was going to continue with “shoe week” but then I remembered that today was Thanksgiving so I figured I ought to do something holiday-related…

Happy Thanksgiving.

I found his vintage turkey bottle on GoAntiques’ website. I’m guessing most turkey-shaped figural bottles are shaped to look like live turkeys rather than roasted ones. I think this one must be unusual. I’ll go even further out on a limb and suppose that this rare bottle may have once contained something like Wild Turkey bourbon. I looks rather flask-like to me. (See also: Pig Bottles)

According to their description, this bottle is circa 1940s. In the photo above it’s marked as costing $275, but it appears to have actually sold for a hundred dollars less.

The buyer was probably thankful — the seller, perhaps, less so.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

November 23, 2011

Wonder Bread Shoes: 4 Pairs

As it seems to be “shoe week” here on box vox, I thought I’d go ahead and take a look at some of the footwear that’s been wearing Wonder Bread’s “trade dress” in the last couple of years…

1. An And1 “wear test sample” that was never manufactured for mass consumption.

2. Wonder Bread style Pro Keds. Their tagline: “the best thing since sliced bread.” Photo via: PBNation (See also: Bread and Sneakers)

3. Wonder Bread bags as shoes worn by Moe from The Simpsons in an episode entitled, “the Grift of the Magi.”

4. The Wonder Bread “color way” for polka dot BAPE Stas.

(Moe’s shoe video, more of And1 and another example, after the fold…)

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November 22, 2011

Bottle Cap Shoes

I didn’t understand these at first: pictures online of miniature sneakers mounted on top of bottle caps, but no pictures of the caps on a bottle. Turns out to be some sort of Adidas/Pepsi promotion from 2008:

Adidas & Pepsi [Japan] team up with [these] limited edition … Adidas … on a Pepsi bottle cap. The cap doesn’t actually fit onto a bottle as it is meant for display purposes although it looks very similar.

Found-NYC

All photos from Butsuyoku. Collect all 60.

(57 more, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 21, 2011

Shoe Bottles

Two shoe-shaped bottles from Ideal Industrial Limited: the “Sports Shoe Shape Glass Bottle With Cork (SHB001)” and the “Glass Bottle in Female Shoe Shape (ISB018).”

These two bottles remind me of Glenn O’Brien’s observations about men dressing too casually on dates with dressed-up women. (See: How to be a Man.) Most shoe-shaped bottles are either men’s sneakers or women’s high heel shoes. What sort of products would come in figural bottles like these?

High-heel shoe-shaped bottles have sometimes been used to contain liqueurs and perfumes and liquid soap might give us cause to look at “women’s pumps” from a whole new angle…

Marks and Spencer used the exact same ISB018 “female shoe shaped” bottle for their 2008 chocolate dairy milk liqueur, below. Although, in their case, they used a stopper rather than a twist off cap and there’s the added hangtag and ribbon. (via: Cool Buzz)

I was thinking that liquid shoe polish would be a good product to package in a shoe-shaped bottle. For some reason, most vintage, shoe-shaped bottles contained ink, although I did find one shoe-shaped bottle that supposedly contained shoe polish. (the “Rockingham” bottle shown below)

(For more about shoe-shaped glass bottles see: Collectors Weekly.)

Above left: the vintage “Rockingham” shoe polish bottle (via: LiveAuctioneers); middle: an Anna Dello Russo shoe-shaped purfume bottle (via: PoisePolish); on right: a shoe bottle hookah via: SuperPiece (see also: Coke Bottle Water Pipe)

As for the sneaker-shaped bottle, Avon seems to be the only company that got into those in big way. Not surprising, since graceless, figural bottles seem to be their specialty.

(Avon sneaker-shaped bottles, after the fold…)

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November 18, 2011

Baby Shoemaker

Yesterday we looked at four makers of (adult-sized) cardboard shoes. Today we consider another ephemeral shoemaker, Catherine McEver (a.k.a. Rubblearium), whose handmade baby shoes were made from a variety of improbable materials.

Pictured above are shoes made out of emory cloth, cigarette pack foil, a sewing pattern, metal screen, sand paper and carbon paper.

… creations I made for a little art book called “All My Little Shoes,” an experiment in materials from gold mesh to meat.

Stuff You Can’t Have

In addition to her cigarette foil shoe above, another package-related shoe was made from a Campbell’s soup label. (Also awfully nice: her Astroturf shoe)

McEver recommends viewing these photos whilst listening to the Everley Brothers singing “Put My Little Shoes Away” which I am enabling you to do here…

(more…)

November 17, 2011

4 Cardboard Shoemakers

We’ve touched on the shoebox-as-shoe concept in he past, but shoes made out of cardboard may be a broader trend in its own right.

What should we call the practitioners of this craft? Cardboard shoemakers? Cardboard cobblers? Cardboard cordwainers? Whatever name we give it, I have 4 examples…

(More cardboard shoes, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 16, 2011

2 More Trapezoidal Boxes

Did a round-up of trapezoidal boxes a while back. Here are two more that I thought looked good together. They’re not new.

The one on the left is Milner Gray’s modern/classic package design for a 1950s Pyrex gift set (No.3a). I like how the handle (and the dark color) make this carton look like a hefty, 1-ton weight. (via: BurningSettlersCabin)

The one on the right is a flat, trapezoid-shaped box for the ARC6 flashlight. (Now discontinued.)

Pairing them up together, I thought the ARC’s embossed “burst” logo sort of related to the Pyrex crown logo. And it also looks, in this photo, as if the ARC6 box had a silver-grey neutral color, matching the black & white Pyrex packaging photo. That, I think, is a misperception based on a skillfully lighted “hero shot.” The ARC6 flashlight box seems to have actually been white. (via: CPF Reviews)

(Another photo, after the fold…)

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November 15, 2011

Pensioners and Packaged Foods: Best Before …

“My wife’s 90-year-old grandmother — having lived through World War II — doesn’t believe in “best before” dates. It made eating at her house rather exciting. Sadly, she had to move to a home and clearing out her larder was as thrilling as being offered a snack. All the products here — going back decades — were, I believe, intended to be eaten.

James Kendall, “Best Before”

James Kendall’s photos of vintage (but still viable?) packaged foods, I can relate to on a personal level…

My late grandmother had a similar disinclination to discard foodstuffs. An elderly box of Nesselroad Pudding in her cupboard was an ongoing joke with my brothers and me.

Of course, in these days of reality television, all types of hoarding are undergoing a closer social scrutiny. Looking at my grandmother’s situation in retrospect, I now regret the smug superiority that we felt towards her housekeeping and her kitchen.

That certainty of ours — that my grandmother was crazy to think that anyone in their right mind would consider eating her box of Nesselroad pudding — was just a part of our being young and newly competent.

“Best before…” certainly does not constitute a drop dead expiration date. It’s more like a serving suggestion, really.

Best before or best by dates appear on a wide range of frozen, dried, tinned and other foods. These dates are only advisory and refer to the quality of the product, in contrast with use by dates, which indicate that the product is no longer safe to consume after the specified date. In spite of this, about a third of food bought is thrown away while still edible.

Wikipedia’s entry on Shelf Life

It’s easy to see why older people might want to push the envelope in this regard. It might even be an inescapable geriatric rule — that as we get older, the food from our kitchen will become increasingly less appetizing to our children. Whether this will be due to failing eyesight, financial hardship or simply our own declining standards of “freshness” is hard to say. Maybe all of the above.

Even if our children become freegans, their food will certainly be fresher than the food in these photos. But so what? Assuming the meal worms and pantry moths have not beaten you to that box of pudding mix: just dust off the top and you’re good to go.

If we can set aside our personal judgments about the “freshness” of packaged products, the importance of packaging in the lives of pensioners becomes more obvious…

(Why packaged food is preferable to home-cooked, after the fold…)

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November 14, 2011

Molecular Gastronomical Canned Food Labels

Don’t much about molecular gastronomy, but these El Bulli Texturas canned food labels caught my eye…

Photo above from: Servus München.

(One more image, after the fold…)

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November 11, 2011

Margarine Penalties

During margarine’s long prohibition, the product was variously outlawed, taxed, prohibited from being colored and required to be colored pink (until “pink” was ruled unconstitutional).

As with alcohol’s prohibition there were “bootleggers.” Some served time.

Above left: the mug shots of Charles Wille, John L. McMonigle and Joseph Wirth who all served time at Leavenworth Prison in the early 1900s.

Center: a photo from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of three Wisconsin women loading a car trunk “with cases of oleomargarine outside an Illinois supermarket near the state border in December 1964.”

On right: an anonymous margarine smuggler from New Brunswick…

Dad and mom smuggled margarine from Maine as it was illegal to have coloured margerine in New Brunswick. I can remember that they took the panels on the car doors off and stuffed the doors full and then put the panels back on.

Kill Everything

In 1918 Frank W. Tillinghast, president of the Rhode Island based “Vermont Manufacturing Company” was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for coloring margarine to resemble butter (and therefore: “tax evasion”).

In 1901 Tillinghast had testified on behalf of margarine in hearings for “The Bill to make Olemargarine and Other Imitation Dairy Products Subject to the Laws of The State or Territory Into Which they are Transported, and to Change the Tax on Oleomargarine” (H. R. 3717).

During margarine’s “pink” period:

In 1890, the Vermont legislature prohibited the manufacture of oleomargarine in that state, and specified that it could be sold in Vermont only if colored pink. In 1891 Minnesota, West Virginia, and New Hampshire passed similar laws. Not long afterwards, an alert Minnesota oleomargarine S.W.A.T. team carried out a pantry raid and confiscated a quantity of not-pink oleomargarine that had been imported from Missouri by Armour Packing Co., a New Jersey corporation.

The Pink Oleo Saga
Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy

Wisconsin’s anti-margarine laws have enjoyed a long run:

Yeah, that was in the late ’70s. Up until 1981, it was illegal to sell dyed margarine in Wisconsin. We had these white bricks that looked like lard. It was awful and no one wanted it. So, once a month, I’d drive to Illinois to get dyed margarine, load up the station wagon, and distribute it to the neighbors.

Will Durst

Canada is another country with stingent margarine regulations of surprising longevity:

Agriculture Department inspectors swooped down on four Wal-Mart stores in the Quebec City area yesterday and seized 72 plastic tubs of yellow Becel margarine with an estimated street value of $179.28.

Quebec seizes yellow margarine
Montreal Gazette, November 5, 2005

(More about margarine as contraband, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 10, 2011

Oleomargarine Coloring Packs

Above are the patent drawings showing William E. Denison’s “coloring berry” which seem to match the Delrich Margarine EZ Color Pak.

Denison’s was one of many efforts to solve the margarine manufacturer’s problem of being legally required to sell their “artificial butter” in an uncolored form. Aside from the dye-containing “berry” there were many other designs for margarine coloring packs, designed to let the consumer take the final step of mixing in the coloring. To make the margarine look less like lard.

A couple of packages shown below even use dye-filled syringes, although I think those appear as more of a manufacturing note and were not meant to be included in the package.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

November 9, 2011

The Margarine Squeeze-Mix EZ Color Pak

The EZ Color Pak (for Cudahy’s Delrich margarine) and the Pliofilm “Squeeze-Mix” margarine package: two versions of a package that would never have existed except for the strength of the Dairy lobby in getting laws passed that prohibited margarine from being pre-colored to resemble butter. (The loophole being, that consumers could color it themselves.)

Never mind that butter itself was often artificially colored yellow—to make it look more like what it actually was.

Unsalted butter and whipped butter are almost as white as margarine. Should we then make the butter industry pay a tax on white butter, which looks like margarine, in order to be sure that the housewife who wants margarine does not get fooled Into buying butter? …

During its many years of trying to exist despite artificially created handicaps, the margarine industry has demonstrated the type of creative and inventive ability that few other food industries have displayed. Its latest effort to overcome the discrimination against it is truly remarkable. … The margarine industry has introduced a color pellet into the margarine container and by merely kneading the bag in which the margarine is sold, the housewife can color the margarine.

Oleomargarine: Hearings Before the Committee on Agriculture
House of Representatives, Eighty-first Congress, 1949

Albert Lowenfels (whose work for Hotel Bar Butter we were just looking at on Monday) while clearly a “butter man” has also defended margarine’s right to be yellow. In 1952 he came out publicly in support of repealing the laws regulating margarine’s color.

(More about Lowenfel’s defense of butter’s chief competitor, after the fold…)

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November 8, 2011

Poetry, Hotel Bar Butter & The Communist Party

Albert Lowenfels (who invented the triangular prism-shaped butter package that we looked at yesterday) had a brother: Walter Lowenfels, a poet who was imprisoned under the Smith Act during the McCarthy era.

“Well, Walter,” I said, “I’m here to find out about you.”

“Then you should ask me about butter,” he obliged. “When I was young, I was in my family’s butter business. In my autobiography I wrote:

For me, butter was a huge, independent world, as self-contained as a spiral nebula. It was the galaxy of business.

…I decided that… I’d rather die as a poet than a butter man. so I told my father I was going to quit his business. He just couldn’t believe it, and he said: I want you to get checked up physically. I said okay; so he told me to go to a doctor, who asked me to bring my book of poems and a urine specimen. When I got to his office, this doctor told me to lie down. (It turned out that he was a psychiatrist!) I told him: ‘Look, I’m going to Europe. My father is the man who’s sick, try to take care of him.’ So my father sent me to another psychiatrist who told my father that I should see Dr. Freud. My father said he’d pay for it, but I never went. I took a slow boat to Spain and never got to Vienna.”

Village Voice, Jan. 16, 1978

But he did get to Paris where he continued writing poetry and became part of the Paris avant-garde. There, with Michael Fraenkel, he established Carrefour Press, which printed anonymous works.

Fraenkel and Lowenfels became excited by the idea of total anonymity in art, deciding to found their own press and publish unsigned books. They believed that gaining recognition in art was like competition in business … To get their “anonymous” movement going, Lowenfels and Fraenkel each contributed work… A number of writers, including Kay Boyle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Michael Arlen, expressed interest in the venture, but no manuscripts were forthcoming.

Walter Lowenfels Biography, Bookrags

With WWII Walter Lowenfels’s creative energies were once again drawn into the competive galaxy of the butter business.

Lowenfels and his family returned to the United States in 1934, moving to Mays Landing, New Jersey. Lowenfels returned to his father’s butter business and worked alongside his brother, Albert. During that time, Lowenfels introduced new ideas to the business; he invented a new waxed paper packaging for butter and he applied date stamping to improve the butter’s freshness. At night and on the weekends, he continued to write poetry.

Yale Library

I’m guessing that it was Albert who submitted the patent for Walter’s waxed paper packaging and that this is it…

Although his work at Hotel Bar Butter sounds creative in some ways, Lowenfels was not happy about returning to work as a “butter man.”

He wrote to Henry Miller about the transition from poet to businessperson: “I butter from nine to five and then I change into a butterfly and go ahead with poems.”

from Wikipedia’s entry on Walter Lowenfels

(Walter Lowenfel’s arrest, after the fold…)

(more…)

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