packaging as content

May 3, 2012

We’re All Disposable Here

Vintage 1960′s Paul Winchell disposable razor display ($295 on eBay)

I know I did the dummy thing to death last March, but this is about another of Paul Winchell’s inventions: a disposable razor. Wikipedia lists it among his patented inventions, but other sources say different:

Paul Winchell actually invented the disposable razor, but he neglected to get a patent on it when friends told him, “Who would buy a razor just to throw it away?”

John Michaud

I’ve looked and could find no sign of a Winchell razor patent so I’m inclined to believe Michaud’s version. Still, Winchell apparently thought enough of the idea to team up with Ozzie Curtis who manufactured these disposable razors in the 1960s. (Note: the groovy typography with the safety-razor shaped “T”)

Vintage Ozzie Curtis disposable razor 2 Pack ($9.99 on eBay)

Of course, disposable razors didn’t really catch on until the disposable BIC Shaver came out in 1975. “Devoted to disposability,” BIC’s founder Marcel Bich applied the same cost-cutting, reductivist product design principles that brought his company success with ballpoint pens and disposable cigarette lighters. (BIC Shaver bag on right from Gregg Koenig’s Flickr Photostream)

By then the competition was between BIC and Gillette. The Los Angeles based “Curtis Safety Razor Company” was no longer in the running. There’s not a lot of information online about this company, but Ozzie Curtis appears to have, for a while, been a regular on the Joe Pyne show, frequently appearing in the “beef box” as Ozzie Whiffletree:

One delightful impromptu moment came when a guest hit Ozzie Whiffletree, then Pyne’s side-kick, on the nose. On camera. The fist in the face was in response to a typical Whiffletree blast: “You’re a liar, that’s what you are, and a coward, too.” The ungrammatical ranting of Whiffletree— “Put your false teeth in backwards and bite your throat” — “Thank you very large” — “I’m aggravated all a time — I wear cheap shoes and tight shorts” made Joe Pyne look almost angelic.

Whiffletree, actually Ozzie Curtis, a wealthy Los Angeles businessman, no longer is on the show.

TV Guide, 1965

Whereas Winchell and his anthropomorphic dummies, half heartedly tried to profit from the disposable trend, BIC was “all in” right from the start. Even in their public service announcement, in which anthropomorphic disposable razors discouraged littering, they did so by touting “We’re all disposable here.”

Meaning: both package and product were now disposable. But if we’re all supposed to identify with these anthropomorphic disposable razors, how are we supposed to feel about that?

(A BIC Shaver commercial and another Ozzie Curtis display, after the fold…) (more…)

April 25, 2012

Mouth-as-window: Package Eats Product

Top: Tequechongos!; 2nd row: Dusan Čežek’s Booster Engery 4-pack box; 3rd row: Design Herynek’s Adriana Mini-Pasta; bottom: Kanikko crab-shaped candy crab packaging

The 1971 ad for two discontinued Tootsie Roll products (Tootsie Tots & Tootsie Jesters ad from Gregg Koenig’s Flickr Photostream) reminded me that I’d been seeing more mouth-shaped windows on packages lately. Maybe now’s a good time for another round up.

Most of it’s food packaging, of course, but not all. As previously observed, when gaping mouths appear on packaging, they are not human mouths.

But seeing them all together, what’s really notable is that they are all illustrations. No photography.

I always liked the simplicity of seeing the product through a mouth-shaped window. As a consumer you’re invited to identify with the character (animal, monster, etc.) and imagine that product in your mouth.

There are also packages that open in mouth-like ways to dispense the product, but however clever these solutions, unless you’re a baby bird, there’s something off-putting about the idea of taking food from another mouth.

Colgate’s 2011 cross marketing effort to sell toothpaste from within a pizza box

Preston Grubbs (whose Spherical-Wedge Juice Packs we looked at last month) connects a chain of three boxes to form a puppet-like “S’mores” kit, in which the upper and lower boxes form a monster character’s mouth and the middle box serves as a sort of “serving suggestion.”

(A non-food monster pack example, after the fold…) (more…)

April 2, 2012

Brands Make Ü Happy

Bliss Buter-Thompson’s observations about package design that seeks to evoke positive feelings with smiley faces (see: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese) reminded me of another persistent graphic design trend. The umlauted, sans-serif “U” as a happy face.

Gü, Frü—(now merged with Gü), pür, güd (designed by Baldwin&), yogen früz, Fünf, jüni, men-ü… (the second dot of men-ü’s logo is an encircled ™, giving its happy face an unfortunate dead eye.)

This kind of anthropomorphic typography in package design also reads as an emoticon: (“The letters Ö and Ü can be seen as an emoticon, as the upright version of :O (meaning that one is surprised) and :D (meaning that one is very happy).”) If consumers can respond to this method of expressing emotion on their cell phones, then why wouldn’t they respond to it on packaging?

There are plenty of other brands, not pictured above, whose logo designers have also sought to get happy in this way. (Füd, Güd Füd, Nü Car Rentals, Trüf Creative…)

Writer, Douglas Coupland has commented on this attraction to the umlauted Ü:

The idea that this particular character in this particular typeface is the most attractive seems to intentionally conflate typeface with happy face. In his 2003 novel, Hey, Nostradamus!, Coupland also wrote this sentence:

“But the Quails spoke only their own language, which had only one word, glü, with a jaunty, Ikea-like umlaut on the ü.”

For a completely different type of happy umlaut pack, also inspired by Coupland, see the Knotoryus Eastpak Artist Studio Bag, below. The logo is also featured on their Ü website.

–Randy Ludacer

March 29, 2012

Anthropomorphic Condiment Packaging

Photo of “Mr. Ketchup” from Inha Leex Hale ’s Flickr Photostream

I remember we featured an anthropomorphic jar of Miracle Whip manning a cash register back in 2009, but these European anthro-packs were brand new to me.

Amora and Calvé are both part of “the Hellmann’s worldwide brand family.” (See also: Our Family of Products)

Via: Global Packaging Gallery (Photo by Krissy Sauter)

Does this package design infringe on Bart Simpson’s trademark hairstyle? At any rate, the Calvé character has siblings and cousin’s as shown in the Amora commerical below…

(More anthropomorphic condiment, after the fold…) (more…)

March 21, 2012

2 Anthropomorphic Heineken Bottles

Two takes on kicking back with Heineken:

1. An anthropomorphic Heineken bottle —with arms, but no legs— “kicks back” and relaxes in the retouched photo at top. I assume this image originated from some specific Heineken campaign, but I can’t find the original source. (If you see what I mean.)

2. An anthropomorphic Heineken bottle —with arms and legs— appears in a disheveled, “morning after” state in a 2007 Michael Williams painting entitled, “Cancuned.” (Detail shown above.)

(Another Williams painting with an anthro-pack, after the fold…)

(more…)

March 16, 2012

Packaging Puppets & Evangelical Ventriloquism

In addition to the Life Cereal box ventriloquist’s dummy that we looked at yesterday, Clinton Detweiler made quite a few other puppets from empty retail packaging.

What wasn’t explored in yesterday’s post was that the purpose of many of these packaging dummies is religious instruction.

These product containers that were designed to carry cleansing products for laundry, have been converted into puppets used to present Bible promises guaranteed to cleanse lives.

“What good is it for you to GAIN the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?”

“For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace BOLD-ly, so that we may receive mercy…”

–Clinton Detweiler

Lucas Conley, in his book, Obsessive Branding Disorder, compared retail spaces like the Apple Store to a “brand church.” And, in fact, this morning’s news mentions that just yesterday fervent consumers were lining up overnight outside of NY’s Apple Store, to purchase the new version of the iPad this morning. Some marketers have tried to bottle this kind of customer enthusiasm as “evangelism marketing.”

So I’m familiar with the idea that stores nowadays were inspiring a more church-like devotion from consumers, but I hadn’t thought about it the other way round… that churches were becoming more like stores.

Just as consumers happily identify with anthropomorphic retail packages and the concept of fraudulent packaging resonates as a political metaphor, preachers are also finding parables in consumer packaging.

We’ve seen evidence of this before in the content of sermons about the Entenmann’s box and deceptive frozen food packaging, but I had never realized that the packages were actually attending church.

And I never knew there was such a thing as “Christian ventriloquism”…

In the late fifties a new theory on how to sway children to Jesus swept the culture and has survived for almost fifty years against all odds. Ventriloquism. The craze of using ventriloquist dummies to teach Jesus to kids became so huge in fact, that there remains today a heavily attended Christian Ventriloquists Convention held in San Diego every year. Hundreds of Christian ventriloquist LPs have permeated America, the biggest star of which was, of course, Little Marcy who recorded for several major Christian record labels.

Listener Kliph Nesteroff, From Subculture to Major Industry:
Mike Warnke and The Roots of Christian Stand-Up Comedy
WFMU Blog, February 11, 2007

These things being the case, I guess it makes total sense that today’s parishioners might be better able to hear “the word of God” when it comes from a detergent box.

–Randy Ludacer

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…)

January 4, 2012

Roly Poly Tindeco Tobacco Tins

Photos via: Dan Morphy Auctions

In last month’s post about roly poly Santa and clown containers, there was one photo of a Santa-shaped tobacco tin. “Tindeco” was the company that originally came out with this type of anthropomorphic package design:

Around 1912 the Tin Decorating Company, aka Tindeco, produced round colorful tins to hold tobacco for the American Tobacco Company. American Tobacco controlled Tindeco, as well as the four brands of tobacco sold in these tins. Each container held about 1 lb of tobacco with the brand names Dixie Queen, Mayo, Red Indian and U.S. Marine. Apparently the company suggested that the tins be used as brownie containers after the tobacco was used and designed them accordingly.

The six original tins were Satisfied Customer (reproduction called Businessman), Storekeeper, Singing Waiter (reproduction called Singer), Mammy, Dutchman (reproduction called Cowboy), and Scotland Yard. According to "The Tin Can Book", the Satisfied Customer, Dutchman and Scotland Yard are the hardest to find. But for those collectors that want complete sets, six tins would not do it! A complete set would be eighteen tins. Mayo and Dixie Queen tobacco was packaged in all six designs and while Red Indian and U.S. Marine were only packaged in three different tins. One way these tins were identified was by little packages of tobacco shown on some of the packages. E.g., Mammy had a tiny tin in her front pocket.

Barbara Crews, Roly Poly Tobacco Tins, 2002

Not exactly the Droste-effect, but when anthropomorphic packages are shown handling packages that contain the same product that they, themselves, contain, the effect is similar. Even when these characters are not shown with packaging in their pockets, they all have tobacco packages behind their backs. (back packs)

On left: a close up of cross-promotional behind-the-back package illustration; on left a vintage Mayo’s Tobacco pack of the type depicted

Below the “Scotland Yard” character with “Dixie Queen” tobacco behind his back. (Lower right corner shows the vintage tobacco pack depicted.)

The “Singing Waiter” character also promoted “Dixie Queen” in an alternate package.

On left: drawing from Washington I. Tuttle’s package design patent; on right: Charles Weise’s patented “shopkeeper” design (both patents assigned to American Tobacco Company)

(The “Mammy” character and the roly poly tobacco tin design patents after the fold…)

(more…)

December 23, 2011

Schweppes Anthro-Pack Christmas

I’ve been cataloging appearances of anthropomorphic packages in advertising for some time now. I have little evidence that anyone else cares about this, but I’m not shy or skittish about beating a dead horse… These examples are part of the 1950s—60s Schweppes campaign called “Schweppshire.”

Meant as a humorous reference to Christmas shopping days, the headline for these ads is “How many Schwepping Days To Christmas?” To my ears, “Schwepping” sounds a lot closer to “schlepping” than “shopping.” But “schlepping” is also a pretty apt description of what the shopping experience can be like at this time of year.

Most of these ads were illustrated by George Him, except for the one with Santa conducting the singing bottles, which was drawn by E.R. Bartelt.

(The ads, in the entirety, after the fold…)

(more…)

December 21, 2011

Roly Poly Clown Containers and the Santa-Clown Hybrid

1: “vintage Russian celluloid roly-poly ding clown doll 60s” (via: eBay); 2: a toy from The Canadian Design Resource site; 3: a Weeble clown from Abraracourcix’s Flickr Photostream; 4: roly poly clown from Live Auctioneers

Following up on Monday’s “Mr. Sprinkles” bottles, another point of reference for their weeble-like bottle shape was probably vintage “roly poly” toys of this type. Sometimes used as containers, as with the “Roly Poly Clown Bubble Bath” bottle on right and the antique “Clown Roly Poly Candy Container” below.

But my real agenda, in bringing this up, is that I needed a way to segue from clowns to Christmas, and the roly poly thing seems to provide that. The grouping of roly poly Santas below is from Sushipot.

Left: 1930s tin roly poly Santa (via: Antique Trader); center: reproduction of a 1900s roly poly Santa tobacco tin container (via: Ruby Lane); on right: Celluloid Sata Claus roly poly toy (also via: Ruby Lane)

But Santa Claus and clowns have more in common than just roly poly toys and containers. They both wear unusual outfits, often with similar hats. It was inevitable that the characters would someday be merged:

Depending on who you ask, Santa Clown is either a hilarious or thoroughly terrifying combination of two well known figures: Santa Claus and a Circus Clown.

What is Santa Clown? (via: Info Barrel)

(Santa Clown imagery, after the fold…)

(more…)

December 20, 2011

Clown Jars

Clown time continues with some clown-related jars from Etsy: a handmade clown cookie jar (yours, for $64.00) and “12 Vintage Clown Cupcake Toppers in Vintage Jar” (sold).

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 19, 2011

Mr. Sprinkles Package Design Makeover

An exception to the general waning of CPG clown packaging:

“Mr. Sprinkles,” (whose weeble-like bottle won the 2009 “Gold” award from the National Association of Container Distributors) has recently been redesigned.

Originally the bottle was more closely akin to inflatable punching bag clowns (see inset right) but, while the overall effect of the new package design is less of a fully-embodied, anthropomorphic pack, the new clown illustration is now more identifiable and less threatening. The product still shows through the window into the clown’s sprinkle-filled belly.

The illustration style looks familiar. (Maybe someone knows whose work this is?)

Photo above left comes from the orginal “Mr. Spinkles” trademark filing. The photo above right is from Bakerella.

(See also: Gömböc Bottle)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 13, 2011

Bottles with Embroidered Shirt Labels

Another example of cross-category, clothing-related package design: Eau de Lacoste “Poloshirt in a Fragrance” bottles with their alligator shirt embem. Note the fabric texture on the sides of the bottle. (See also: Package as Clothing)

My earliest memory of an embroidered alligator emblem was when my mother in the late 1950s or early 1960s created some counterfeit Lacoste shirts for my grandfather, my father, me & my little brother. This was motivated more by the alligator than the brand status, I think, since we lived in south Florida, not so far from the Everglades. (See also: Crocodile Boxes—Alligator Bags)

Still, my mother must have been aware that the Lacaoste alligator emblem was a self-proclaimed “status symbol.”

René Lacoste founded La Chemise Lacoste in 1933 with André Gillier, the owner and president of the largest French knitwear manufacturing firm at the time. They began to produce the revolutionary tennis shirt Lacoste had designed and worn on the tennis courts with the crocodile logo embroidered on the chest. Although the company claims this as the first example of a brand name appearing on the outside of an article of clothing, the “Jantzen girl” logo appeared on the outside of Jantzen Knitting Mills’ swimsuits as early as 1921. In addition to tennis shirts, Lacoste produced shirts for golf and sailing. In 1951, the company began to expand as it branched from “tennis white” and introduced color shirts. In 1952, the shirts were exported to the United States and advertised as “the status symbol of the competent sportsman,” influencing the clothing choices of the upper-class. Lacoste was sold at Brooks Brothers until the late 1960’s. It is still one of the most popular brands in the United States, sporting the “preppy wardrobe”.

from Wikipedia’s entry on history of Lacoste

Invariably, when packaging serves as a metaphor for clothing, a consumer naturally tends to anthopomorphize and even identify with the product contained.

(The advertising, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 2, 2011

Anthropomorphic Light Beer

Another anthropomorphized package: the Bud Light Beer bottle costume from the 2009 “Bud Light Golden Wheat” campaign. This spot is entitled “Persistence.” (via: Anonymous Content)

October 19, 2011

Ballantine Miscellany

1. A print proof of a Ballantine 40 oz. Ale label, circa 1987 (via)

2. Not a Jasper Johns sculpture. (Just two views of a collectable vintage can.)

3. Above: Three large sizes of the ale with the three-ring logo and three Xs.

4. An animated gif of a rotating carton of Ballantine XXX Ale. (on left, via)

5. An embossed tin sign with Ballantine
Ale bottle “faux” bursting through background on right. (See also: History of the Graphic Burst)

6. We recently made rueful mention of “American exceptionalism.” Below: the beer version of that idea—a vintage ad that takes a patriotic pride in the endless hunt for “something better.”

…this hunt by energetic America for something better doesn’t stop with the big things… Among the many “better things,” and one not to be overlooked, is a moderate beverage, an ale in fact, that has been discovered and approved by many. So many that, in the land where the question “Is it better?” is on so many tongues, it has become America’s largest selling ale.

(via)

(One more thing after the fold…)

(more…)

October 18, 2011

Bottles and Body Types

Last year, Medical Marketing and Media’s “Best Over-The-Counter Product Advertisement/Campaign Gold Award went to AbelsonTaylor and Abbott Nutrition for their Ensure “Nutrition in Charge” commercials. (CG animation by Bent Image Lab)

In these commercials, an anthropomorphic bottle of Ensure hectors the other anthropomorphic occupants of the fridge (some of whom are fruits & vegetables —others are other packaged foods) about healthy nutrition. It’s unclear whether the Ensure bottle is playing the role of coach or drill-sergeant. Either way, this anthro-pack is clearly a mesomorphic dominant male.

“Ensure has a unique blend of prebiotic fiber to help promote digestive tract health, and antioxidants (vitamins C and E and selenium) to support the immune system.”

In contrast to Ensure’s muscular bottle, consider the pencil-armed, ectomorphic Aktifit bottle. (3D art direction by Champignon Images ; production by Frame Eleven; modeling, UV’s & texturing by Fabio Quaggiotto; compositing by Mike Frei. Agency: TBWA Switzerland)

Aktifit also makes immunological health claims and employs an anthropomorphic bottle, but its contents are probiotic rather than prebiotic.

“Emmi Aktifit is a probiotic drink made from pasteurized skimmed milk, providing the body with lasting strength from the inside. Clinically tested LGG culture stabilizes intestinal flora, promotes digestion and strengthens the body’s immune defences.”

As a character, the European Aktifit bottle shows less aggression — more passive resistance. Apparently immune to cold season, it happily reclines in a beach chair as it snows. (Is this the cold weather of the fridge?)

(More Ensure commericals and some Aktifit “out takes” after the fold…)

(more…)

October 12, 2011

Eric Barclay’s Painted Packages

Texas-based llustrator, Eric Barclay, has an knack for finding a latent anthropomorphic character, hidden in the shape of most any package. Hence, two sizes of Coffee-mate become “Mr. Shackleton” and “Mr. Hudson” (above). Barclay confirms that his companionable characters are based on two famous explorers:

Mr. Shackleton is named after Earnest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer. Mr. Hudson, the walrus, is named after Henry Hudson who encountered walruses on his explorations of Canada…

As far as the characters go, Shackleton is a herring magnate and Mr. Hudson is his driver and “heavy.” Mr. Hudson knows a lot of people at the horse track.

Other painted packages by Barclay include a plastic squeeze bottle of French’s Mustard, whose shape embodied a circus lion…

(Another container’s inner feline character revealed, after the fold…)

(more…)

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