Box Vox

packaging as content

February 29, 2012

Water Pipe Bottles

Following up here on the pipe/bottle theme started on Monday… (There was one earlier “water pipe bottle” that I wrote about back in 2009, but these are quite different.)

5 water-pipe-shaped water bottles, design by DWARS ontwerp’s Mark Schulte for the non-profit group JoinThePipe.org.

“Joining” in this context has multiple meanings. Sold as reusable water bottles, with the proceeds benefiting the construction of third-world water pipelines, they can be literally “joined” to interconnect like pipes, forming a metaphorical water pipeline. And by purchasing a bottle, supporters are “joining” the cause in the social-media/cause-marketing sense of the word.

Our plastic bottles should be kept for life, each bottle has a bayonet system in the top and bottom, they can be connected to one another so you can get the idea of building the pipeline at home.

The bottles have a double lid opening for easy washing and a rubber band for attaching to clothing, bikes, bags or fingers!

(See also: Elizabeth Royte on Packaged Water)

–Randy Ludacer

February 29, 2012

Packaging an Emotion

As a matter of course, I am not a big fan of conceptual or student packaging projects. Everything and anything is possible when there is no need to follow a client’s branding, price point or other important factors like manufacturability, pallet yield,or etc.; the end result is often interesting and innovative, but fairly useless. Grumpiness aside, I was introduced to “Package an Experience”, or rather “Package an Emotion”, a student project that I really enjoyed. Emotion is widely talked about in the commercial packaging industry and more often than not, relies on graphics instead of structural form to get its point across. This project allowed the students to break away from graphics and flex their 3d skills. In short, the student’s work is more like sculptures than exercises in packaging.

Four packages stood out among the body of student work. The first being the Packaging Sadness project. In this concept, shown above, students encased flowers with in a multi-part wooden box. The box appears to be shattered and its sections can be removed bit by bit, slowly revealing the flower. The end result is a pile of heavy wooden shards at the base of a delicate flower. Although I am not sure how the sleeve they used related to the theme, I thought overall the package captured the fractured nature of sadness.

The second package was the Anger pack. Like the sadness pack, it is also made of shards but this time they are of glass. And instead of flowers, it’s a bottle of perfume which can only be accessed by smashing the package. The sections are formed into a ball with a single red shard providing contrast and a sense of unease. A gift you would probably not want to give your teenage daughter.

Lauren Von Dehsen has a nice series of “packages” which are clearly more sculptural than the previously discussed work. Although merely foam, I would love to get my hand on these to see how they opened. The Serenity Pack looks like it belongs in a spa. I imagine when held, it has a cool surface and its lid slides effortlessly off to reveal some sort of relaxing smell like eucalyptus. The Anxiety pack consists of piles of stones leaning precariously and gives the impression that they are going to fall at any moment. The Curiosity Pack is reminiscent of a chunky molecular model and has knobs and surfaces that are begging to be turned and opened.

Lastly, Nicole Meehling has not been a student for some time, but her project of Packaging the Ocean has stuck with me since I first saw it several years ago. In this package she attempted to capture a single moment on the ocean. The frosted outer box encapsulates a smaller inner blue box that when opened is suspended between the outer box sections. The inside is covered in snapshots of someone swimming, and it bounces around, recreating the feeling of floating on the ocean surface. Overall the piece is lighthearted and feels like a day at the beach, but without the sunburn and sand in your socks.

-Bliss Buter-Thompson

February 28, 2012

A New Contributor…

In other news, I’m pleased to announce that Bliss Buter-Thompson, Senior Designer at BurgoPak USA, has consented to contribute to box vox.

BurgoPak is a fascinating company, whose patented Slider Pack we were just talking about earlier this month.

I’ve no doubt that there’s much more to learn about BurgoPak’s structural packaging innovations. Bliss, having been with the firm since they first opened their branch in Chicago, brings firsthand structural engineering experience to her commentary on package design.

For her first post, she’s made a survey of student sculptural/packaging projects with emotional content: “Packaging an Emotion.”

–Randy Ludacer

February 28, 2012

Magic Packaging 2

A new package design book from DesignerBooks, entitled, Magic Packaging 2, arrived at our office last week and guess whose excellent package design appears on page 172? (in the “Intriguing Magic” section)

Ours.

It’s our concept and structural design for a shirt-shaped, wrap card for the Totally Living™ velvet hangers 10-pack… which can also be seen here on our web site.

Don’t know why we weren’t included in the earlier Magic Packaging 1, but I do like the way things are trending.

Anyway, you should totally buy this book. It’s only 280.00 元  (or 246.00 元 if you are a member.)

(See also: Choi’s Package)

-Randy Ludacer

February 27, 2012

Plastered Plumber(s)

We ended Friday’s post with a package-related drinking gag.

Thinking we might stick with that theme for one more round, I was reminded of the “Plastered Plumber” Whiskey Dispenser. (Photos above are from the basement of  Allee Willis’s Bubbles the Artist site.)

We focused on another of Poynter Products’ alcohol-related gags last September—their 1950s line of cocktail flavored toothpastes.

This product is from 1961 and can be found occasionally on eBay, which is where I found the photos below. A package-related accessory for liquor bottles, serving a certain sense of humor, but no practical purpose.

Willis made some interesting and detailed observations about the packaging’s punctuation…

Made in 1961 by Poynter Products Inc. Cincinnati, Ohio, Plastered Plumbers’ slogan is “The whiskey goes ’round and round and round and r…”

…but the first ‘round has an apostrophe in front of it while the rest of them remain bare. Not to mention that the first roun is missing a D.

Perhaps diminished capacity on the part of the art director after sampling the product accounts for the diminished punctuation.

– Allee Willis

I have to agree that it looks like very sloppy ’60s proofreading. (Not that I’m anyone to talk about scrupulous proofreading!)

Anyway, I have an almost completely unrelated, earlier example of the term “plastered plumber” being used…

(Another plastered plumber, after the fold…) (more…)

February 24, 2012

Bottled Can(s)

This photo is from a 2004 Diet Pepsi ad by BBDO Proximity, entitled “Bottled Can.”

Such a simple photo, but its full import was not always fully understood…

“A can of diet Pepsi has been kept inside the bottle to depict the low-calorie quality of the drink. Moreover, a slim body can always be best depicted in the shape of the bottle rather can.”

Ad Punch

Never mind that it’s one brand being contained, like a Trojan Horse, in the packaging of its rival!

In this ad, the cross-referential idea of one type of packaging containing another, has largely overshadowed the more confrontational “brand versus brand” thing. (See also: Blended Soda Brands and The Concept of Coke & Pepsi)

Also hip: the “packaging contrapposto” whereby the neck of the Coke bottle points one way while the business end of the Diet Pepsi can points the other way. (See also: Cocktail in a Toothpaste Tube)

Beverage advertising, however, is not the only context for a can to be situated within a bottle. I have two more examples…

1. There is a method of making contaminated water safe to drink that employs a soda can within a larger, PVC bottle as a pasteurizing apparatus.

Eric Marlow’s 2008 soda bottle pasteurizer is shown on upper right. David Delaney’s 2003 soda bottle pasteurizer is shown on lower right.

2. The other example involves beer rather than soda. In the category of supposedly humorous breweriana, in the subset of “emergency” drinking supplies you will find various versions and brands of the “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass!” gag…

(On eBay, and after the fold…)

(more…)

February 23, 2012

XYZ Boxes



On left: Radeon’s X-shaped box for their HD 4890 graphics card; center: a Y-maze box; on right: Jeffrey Love’s Z-shaped box for Sprint’s Muziq Phone

OK, I know. One of these things is not like the others. I had a little trouble finding a suitable Y-shaped consumer package to fill out my high-concept trio.

And while the Y-maze box (above center) can serve as a temporary container for rodents, it really isn’t the letter-shaped, retail package that I initially had in mind.

None-the-less, the other two boxes are for consumer electronics and I would submit to you that there is something inherently digital about a laboratory rat (or mouse) confronting the binary choice contained in this box. (left = 1; right = 0)

(And speaking of rats & typography, see also: IlliteRAT.)

–Randy Ludacer

February 22, 2012

ABC Bottles

More to spell out on the subject of letter-shaped package design…

The drawings above are from Mikelyn Roderick’s 2003 patent for “Letter and Number Shaped” bottles.

I couldn’t find the product as envisioned here, although I did find a matching “A” and “B” bottle on eBay. I suppose the manufacturer may have originally made all 26 letter-shaped bottles, but if certain letters just didn’t sell well, those letters may have been discontinued.

Below are three vintage perfume bottles that represent my best effort at finding A, B & C shaped examples….


On left: Liz Claiborne bottle (via: Gisellez); center: Beau Belle by Bourjois (via: Perfume Projects); on right: early Chanel bottle with “C” cap (also from: Perfume Projects)

Tomorrow’s subject? X-Y-Z boxes.

(Roderick’s patent, after the fold…) (more…)

February 21, 2012

Packaging Typography

Packaging Typography: 3 kinds.

1. Letters made out of packages

The cover of Sunday’s NY Times magazine section featured some illustrated typography by Georgina Luck: letters made out of packages. Illustrating an article entitled, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets,” the entire illustration spells out “HEY! YOU’RE HAVING A BABY!”

Another example of a letter form made from different types of packaging is Richard Conn’s “R” made from crushed packaged from a 1998 show in London called “Cast of characters.” (via: All About Lettering)

2. Packaging shaped like letters

Since letters are are flat symbols, any packaging based on letter forms tends to be based primarily on the 3D block style typography. Viktoriya Gadomska’s Vitamin boxes (A–F) and the “MILK” carton by Julien De Repentigny & Gabriel Lefebvre are examples of this approach.

(3rd kind of Packaging Typography, after the fold…) (more…)

February 20, 2012

Stickney & Poor’s Spiral Peppersauce Bottle

One last thing before we wind up last week’s “spiral bottle” thread…

From 1884, Stickney & Poor’s patented bottle design for a hexagonal spiral glass bottle. Like many figural glass bottles of the time, the structural packaging concept trumps the graphic design…

“These bottles were neck labeled since labels could not adhere well to the lumpy body.”

via: Society for Historical Archaeology

The non-spiral neck portion was labeled like this…

(See also Dr. Fisch’s Bitters in which a figural, fish shaped bottle was labeled on the bottom.)

(Rufus Barrus Stickney’s design patent, after the fold…)

(more…)

February 17, 2012

Collapsible Spiral Bottles

Following the spiral thread a bit longer, there’s been quite a bit of inventive energy spent on making bottles collapse in a spiral pattern.

Similar to the accordion bottles we looked at last year, except that each of these bottles uses a helix-shaped bellows, rather than a bellows built from congruent circles.

These packages are also designed to take up less space after use. Similar to Jiwoon Park and Kwenyoung Choi’s twistable “Nnew Can” concept (see: Helix Redux) there is something intuitive and interactive about crushing a pack by twisting.

The patent drawings above are from 1993, 2010 & 2011.

Alessio Venturi’s “Spiral Bottle” concept, on right, won an honorable mention in the 2004 Macef Design Awards:

DREAM OF ECOLOGICAL BOTTLE

The characteristic SPIRAL shape, besides assuring as easy identification of the product, involves an easy management of the empty which will be reduced in size by pressing it and will not occupy much room in the dustbin.

(via: DesignBoom)

(Norwood, Dickie, and Jung’s patented bottles, after the fold…) (more…)

February 16, 2012

Spiral Neck Bottles

We did a round-up of helical bottles in 2010, but recently I’ve been noticing more examples.

The Welde-Biere bottle (on the right) strikes me as a radically different form from the subtle spiral of a vintage Pepsi bottle. This bottle is designed more like a ram’s horn. It’s not just the larger gauge of the shape twisting around. Earlier Squirt soda bottles were based on a similarly large spiral ridge. I think it’s partly because it’s the neck and not the body that’s twisting. A helix wrapping around a cylinder establishes more of a regular repeating pattern. A spiraling tapered neck, however, gives Welde’s bottles a wonky, less uniform look.

It was a look they fought hard to have trademarked when their initial application was refused. And even when trademarked, their bottle was so specific a shape that they were unable to prevent Kofola “Snipp” from using a shorter bottle with a less pronounced spiraling neck. (on left)

In the Judgement of the Court:

“…the mere fact that the two bottles have a helically formed neck does not lead to the conclusion that there is a likelihood of confusion…”

The earlier Squirt bottle, shown below, had a spiral body, but a plain, conical-shaped neck. The Welde bottles, with their plain, cylindrical bodies and spiral necks, reverse this.

In another recent spiral necked bottle, the helix is actually an internal feature. O-I’s “Vortex” bottle for Miller Lite uses embossed internal ridges to encourage a novel, twisting pour.

(Some Vortex bottle videos, after the fold…) (more…)

February 15, 2012

The Prell Shampoo Anthro-Pack

In our compulsive cataloging of anthropomorphic packages, we haven’t found many anthropomorphic tubes. (Only Hy-Jen toothpaste and Vademecum come to mind.)

Prell Shampoo’s “Tallulah the Tube” was controversial because it was was based on the actress, Tullulah Bankhead, who had not given permission and did not approve:

In the spring of ’49 my ears were poisoned with this jingle:

I’m Tallulah, the tube of Prell,
And I’ve got a little something to tell,
Your hair can be radiant, oh so easy,
All you’ve got to do is take me home and squeeze me.

Another verse had this line:

For radiant hair get a-hold of me
Tullulah, the tube of Prell Shampoo

This attempt to capitalize on my name stiffened my hackles. In my thirty years in the theater I had spurned offers adding up to a maharajah’s ransom to endorse this gadget, that cure-all. Quicker than a Prell-user could dry her mane, I slapped a suit for a million dollars’ damages on the two radio companies over whose networks the verses were broadcast, on Procter and Gamble, sponsors for the lather, and on the advertising agency which schemed the outrage.

Tallulah: My Autobiography

A sound file of “Tallulah, the Tube’s” radio jingle: (via: Old-Time.com)

(More about Tullulah, the Tube, after the fold…) (more…)

February 14, 2012

Hearts & Packaging



Top left: Jamie Nash’s bee’s wings heart illustration for Lovely Honey; top center & 2nd row left: because olive oil is “heart healthy,” Soporte Comunicación’s package design for “Secret to Live” Olive Oil uses olive parts to make whole hearts (see also: The Incomplete Package); on right: Ralph Lauren “Love” perfume in its limited edition “Heart of Gold” bottle; lower right: Vanguard Creation’s faceted, heart-shaped bottle for Diesel’s “Loverdose”

Some heart-related packaging for Valentine’s Day. ♡

–Randy Ludacer

February 13, 2012

Vertical-Horizontal Jar

An unusual example of vertical/horizontal ambidexterity in packaging: Glen Robert Carpenter’s 1937 “Design for a Jar.”

Like Donald Deskey’s 1954 Drene carton (or the 2008 Lego Fruit Snacks box), this jar can be displayed in two positions. I don’t know what product this jar was meant to contain… maybe a counter dispenser jar for candy?

(Carpenter’s package  design patent, after the fold…)

(more…)

February 10, 2012

Getting a Grip on Deskey’s Bottle Design

As promised, the brand identity of yesterday’s mystery bottle is now revealed. At first I thought it might be for a men’s product since there’s something tool-like about its hand-grip shape. Incorrect.

Turns out, it was designed to contain Drene Shampoo. Difficult to figure this out, however, since this brand no longer exists.

Originally, soap and shampoo were very similar products; both containing the same naturally derived surfactants, a type of detergent. Modern shampoo as it is known today was first introduced in the 1930s with Drene, the first shampoo with synthetic surfactants.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Shampoo

Presumably, since Deskey’s patented 1949 bottle design was assigned to Procter & Gamble, it was also he who designed the graphics for the bottle label and the carton that the bottle came in.

Five years later the Drene Shampoo packaging was redesigned again, although the bottle shape remained unchanged. (The photo and the quote below are via Al Q’s Flickr Photostream…)

New Drene carton is a completely new design – by Don­ald Deskey Associates — due to increasing sales of the shampoo through supermarkets and grocery chains. New design has cosmetic appeal, bold display, and a flexibility of display that permits placing the carton in a horizontal or vertical position. Designer’s second most important contribution (the new carton was the first) was the re­search and development of printing inks in colors which would meet the specifications set by the client. Ink speci­fications are very critical and only inks that will with­stand product tests, fade tests, and scuff tests, are accept­able. Until recently, chartreuse and purple colors could not be formulated to meet the requirements. Deskey’s third most important contribution was the development of a package design that has been an inspiration to the advertising agency in the preparation of outstanding and revolutionary advertising art work.

from “Industrial Design In America” 1954

Interesting to note this early example of a package being designed to work both horizontally and vertically. Not all product manufacturers care about this idea, but it does gives a store more display options. (See: Lego Fruit Snacks)

(More about Deskey’s Drene and it’s finger grip shape, after the fold…) (more…)

February 9, 2012

2 More Design Patent Bottles by Donald Deskey

In addition to Tuesday’s patents for toothpaste tubes and other patented package designs by Donald Deskey, I recently found design patents for the bottles above.

Similar to the detective work that the bottles from Dead Horse Bay presented, finding a patent for a package design and then finding a photo of the actual retail package can be a difficult job. But somebody’s got to do it.

The 1951 patent drawing on the right was easy. It’s Joy Dishwashing Detergent. The patent drawing on the left from 1948 was much harder. I’ll tell you about that one tomorrow.

(More Joy, after the fold…)

(more…)

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