packaging as content

October 4, 2011

Packaging as Product Mask

There have been a number of recent Lucha Libre influenced beverage packs —(soda, beer, wine, spirits)— all featuring masked wrestling characters.

But when I saw José Guízar’s mask-shaped labels for his conceptual craft beer, it struck me differently. What a good idea to let the product wear the mask. Such a good idea, in fact, that I figured someone else must have thought of this too.

Sure enough, José Barrientos’s “Unmasked Luchadores + Poster Book” comes in a box featuring a die cut Luchador mask, strategically designed to let the contents peek though.

Another packaging metaphor? “Packaging as Product Mask”

On the one hand it might seem like a deceptive thing for the package to conceal or disguise the product. On the other hand, if your product is like a super hero then consumers will perhaps understand that the “hero” must sometimes remain incógnito.

(See also: McSweeney’s Head Box and Die Cut Windows)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

September 27, 2011

Shapeshifting Diet Pepsi Can

Pepsi has fattened up its diet “skinny” can with a redesign that aims, perhaps, to distance itself from a controversy that bubbled up earlier this year.

The Independent, September 14, 2011

But if Diet Pepsi’s “skinny” can embodied a negative “body image” message, then how are consumers to interpret such an abrupt change from tall, skinny cans to short, fat cans?

Now that soda cans are understood to be proxies for our own body shapes, this drastic change of shape surely carries with it a subliminal message about Yo-yo dieting and weight cycling. (Or, perhaps, height-cycling since both 250 ml cans above would actually weigh about the same.)

September 23, 2011

Vademecum

Four more things about the Swedish toothpaste brand, Vademecum, whose “toothpaste key” commercial we featured on Wednesday…

1. Photo above shows their use of an actor in an anthropomorphic packaging costume in a 1930 advertising campaign. via (See also: Hy-Jen Toothpaste)

2. In 1938 Mickey Mouse also promoted Vademecum. Here he is holding a tube of Vademecum toothpaste, saying something in Swedish about the product to Minnie Mouse. Note: logo is up-side-down. (Swedish comic strip panel via: The Daily War Drum)

(Two more things, after the fold…)

(more…)

August 23, 2011

New Package Design for Warm Whiskers Eye Pillow

Another booth that we visited at Gift Fair last week was DreamTime, Inc. The new packaging for their line of Warm Whiskers eye pillows caught my eye, because of the way the product conceals the eyes of its face-shaped die cut cards.

I’m always on the lookout for packaging that functions as an anthropomorphic proxy—either for the seller or, in this case, for the consumer. It’s a wonderfully direct way of showing the product’s purpose—showing the eye pillow in use on a person’s face—but oddly attention-getting precisely because the person’s eyes are hidden.

Personally, I felt compelled to lift the mask up and peak underneath—just to confirm that there were actually eyes printed there! That kind of interaction with the product and its packaging can’t be a bad thing. (And I have, in the past, ruminated about why a retail package should never stare the consumer down.)

Previously this product was packaged in a fancy, but generic organdy bag.

The new cards come with an easel back for counter display and a hang hole to make them peggable. I’m not too crazy about the wishy-washy brand logo, but (to my eye) the packaging concept, the girly illustrations and the cute products more than make up for it.

I don’t have photos of them, but I also recall seeing anthropomorphic die cut displays for stuffed animal “neck wraps” at their booth…

(More about the “neck wraps” after the fold…)

(more…)

August 5, 2011

Hair Styles & Package Design

When I first saw the “Black Melon Bread” snack bag (on Packaging Uqam) I liked its afro-shaped window, but I wondered (as did Karen Halliburton) whether there wasn’t something mockingly racist about it. Looking into it further, I learned that it’s actually a tie-in product to the manga character known as “Afro Tanaka” (film coming soon) and that there’s another similarly packaged “Afro Tanaka Onigiri Bomb” (on right).

The next thing I wondered about was whether there were other non sequitur “hair products” out there—products that had nothing to do with hair or hair care, but whose package design makes the product look like hair (or a hairstyle). Ogilvy & Mather’s “Rellana Hair” yarn packaging from 2009 (below, left) is a good example.

Lucas “Crazy Hair” candy is another example. (The illustration above, right is by Leonello Calvetti) A hat-shaped cap makes this extruding candy package vaguely anthropomorphic. With or without a hat, this really looks more like a jar growing out of a planter, than a person growing hair, but the package does extrude candy hair.

I was thinking that spaghetti was another likely metaphor for hair. (Or is hair the metaphor for spaghetti?) Looking for an example of that, I found Jaeyoung Ha’s “La Pasta Famiglia”—also anthropomorphic. (and with mouth-shaped die-cut windows) Here, different pasta shapes dictate the hairstyles for each of the family members. (See also: Our Family of Products)

(One more example of non-sequitur hair-style package-design, after the fold…)

(more…)

July 29, 2011

Kooky Kans

From the “Mixo” dual oil & vinegar bottle of the previous post, we now turn to a different Mixo whose “Kooky Kans” are the latest enterprise of serial entrepreneur, Mike Becker (who previously founded Funko and Flapjack Toys.)

Mixo’s first product line, Kooky Kans combine the look and nostalgia of tin lunch boxes along with the fun of your favorite action figures. I’m filling my Kooky Kans with two things, delicious candy or our super amazing instant playsets we call Kookycraft. Kookycraft is kind of like Japanese Origami meets cereal box cut-outs… of the 60 & 70s.

Mike Becker, Chairman of Fun

An example of Kookycraft is shown below…

Note the can-shaped man in the apron. This is Mr. Mixo, the presumptive company mascot. I was struck by his uncanny resemblance to another anthropomorphic packaging mascot: the Big Shot soda jerk…

(A couple more photos, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 23, 2011

Containing a Product / Supporting the Troops

We recently needed a can of WD-40 and the one we bought turned out to be one of their limited edition series of collectible cans to honor American military forces. It made me wonder about this kind of “Support Our Troops” packaging.

There were lots of companies during World War II that made “supporting the war effort” a key element of their advertising. (See: Life Savers at War) Today, I expect, few of our transnational, global corporations would want to be closely associated with any one side of a conflict. Not when there’s so little political consensus and even terrorists are potential customers.

As a marketing strategy, “Supporting the Troops” is similar to other ethical marketing causes. A portion of the proceeds of each purchase are supposed to benefit the troops.

Necco’s “Red White & You” Sweethearts candy, the benefit is delivered via the USO:

As part of the program, New England Confectionery Company donated Sweethearts for every Operation USO Care Package sent from June through August. Candies were printed with heartfelt sayings like “Miss You,” “Brave One” and “Home Safe.”

Schneider Associates

Srixon Golf Balls also “teamed up” with the USO:

Srixon, a world leader in golf club and golf ball technology, is proud to announce that in support of our troops overseas and the sacrifices they and their families have made in service to our country, Srixon has teamed up with the United Service Organization (USO) to give back to our troops. From July 1, 2010 through December 31, 2011, we will be donating 5% of net proceeds from the sale of Srixon camouflaged packaged golf products and accessories or those featuring the USO logo, to the USO.

Srixon Blog

WD-40’s troop support proceeds go to three different charities:

Crown Aerosol Packaging North America, a business unit of Crown Holdings Inc. and WD-40 Company are launching a limited edition series of collectible cans to honor American military forces. The series consists of four different designs: three depicting air, sea, and land themes and one combined graphic showcasing all five military branches, including the Coast Guard.

WD-40 Company will donate 10 cents per can purchased to three military charities: Armed Services YMCA, Wounded Warrior Project and Veterans Medical Research Foundation. Crown will also make a donation to each of the charities.

Package Design Magazine

Sometimes, even with the most charitable intentions, a package design can be disturbing.

(Packaging that attempts to honor “the fallen”, after the fold…)

(more…)

May 26, 2011

More Orthographic Head Boxes

The Grain’s T2 Tea boxes: more orthographic head boxes, similar to the McSweeney’s Head Box we featured in February. (Via: Lovely Package)

These are promotional gifts rather than actual retail boxes:

“Using a selection of tea from T2 we created four individual tea boxes and personified them to reflect the names of the following popular flavours of tea: Gorgeous Geisha, English Breakfast, Chai and French Earl Grey. Each box holds a few tea bags and a small scroll showing images of recently completed work with an invitation to ‘sit down for 5 minutes with a cup of tea and learn more about us.”

The Grain

(See also: last Tuesday’s Cat Head Packaging)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

May 19, 2011

Mated Container Units

Yesterday’s post about the similar interlocking bottles, raised a number of questions. The patent drawings above date from 1963 to 2008, each showing a different patented method of connecting separate bottles. There are plenty of products that can be sold in pairs — shampoo & conditioner; 2-part epoxy; oil & vinegar — but what are consumers to make of it when these products are sold in interlocking bottles?

Are they anthropomorphic couples? Are they happily married? Are they promiscuous? Or are they more like puzzle pieces fitting together?

Or body parts fitting together?

The 69-ish innuendo of yesterday’s bottle structure (and the single quote marks ‘’ in Joy Lin’s Hustler Lubricant concept) is even more explicit in Franck Legoupil’ 2001 patent for a “Container Assemble of Two Nested Containers,” pictured above.

This same symmetrical gender-geometry is also at work in the “Mated Container Units” patented by Juris M. Mednis in 1986:

“A multi-purpose container unit whose hollow body, neck and shoulder sections are proportioned and constructed in a manner that allows interfacing and mating with an identical or mirror image unit of like size… The container has a neck and a recessed portion along its vertical axis which accepts and provides safe harbor and protection to the neck and closure portion of the mated unit whose corresponding body recess, in turn, accepts the neck and closure portion of a second container of the mated unit…”

(See what the “Mated Container Units” look like, after the fold…)

(more…)

May 5, 2011

Lipton’s Anthropomorphic Canned Soup

Usually associated with instant soup in packets, this ad from a 1946 issue of the Utica NY Observer shows that Lipton’s also once made a canned Tomato Vegetable Soup or as they put it in the ad “…a fresh-cooked soup masterpiece in modern soup mix form!” (The photo on right from Collectologist2’s Flickr Photostream.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

April 29, 2011

Anthropomorphic Aerosol Can

If you’re searching for something relatively obscure on Google, you sometimes run up against this smug, algorithmic presumption that you must have misspelled it.

Last week, while researching “Muffets” (the round shredded wheat), Google kept insisting that it was surely Muppets that I was looking for. To the point where I was forced to type: muffets -muppets (Muffets, not Muppets, damnit!)

But along the way Google showed me something that I was grateful to see: a 1967 commercial for Linit Fabric Finish spray, featuring an anthropomorphic aerosol can with the familiar Jim Henson/Kermit-the-Frog voice.

Predating Sesame Street’s debut by several years, the spray-can puppet was made by Don Sahlin and the “fair damsel” at the ironing board was played by Jenny O'Hara.

(Sir Linit photo & Henson’s “Linit Man” character sketch, after the fold…)

(more…)

April 18, 2011

2 Anthropomorphic Bottles

Two anthropomorphic bottles—each one is 7 inches tall.

1. On left:

7" tall figural bottle depicting Al Capp’s Shmoo character with screw-on lid. Bottle by Baldwin Laboratories of Saegertown, PA. Front of bottle neck has Shmoo facial features in red paint, back has expanded “SHMOOoo” name and U.F. Syn. copyright text. c. late 1940s. (Price = $75) via Hakes

2. On right:

A Pre Columbian Peru Classic Huari Wari culture ca. 600-900 AD polychromed pottery anthropomorphic bottle having a tapered bulbous body and tapered head spout with painted and relief facial features. Wearing a wide multistrand necklace and hands held to his stomach. A restored break on the left side of the body and two restored rim chips, otherwise intact. Measures 7 X 5. (“Buy It Now” price = $1,450) via eBay

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

April 1, 2011

The Tareyton Cigarettes Anthro-Pack Mascot

Earlier this week we looked at Grape-Nuts ads with anthropomorphic boxes, and a later ad in which they compared their cereal’s new box to “a good old friend in a gay, new dress.”

It now appears that Tareyton Cigarettes covered some of the same ground with their anthro-pack named, “Wagner” sponsoring the 1950s children’s puppet show, “The Gay Cavalcade.” (above)

Wagner, however, was a badly-drawn and ill-conceived mascot that wound up causing the company considerable grief…

People might remember Tareyton Cigarettes as the brand that went bankrupt due to an urban legend back in the 60’s. A rumor convinced people that the Tareyton company was a front for Adolph Hitler, who was living in Argentina and running a tobacco empire to finance an army to re-take Europe. The only evidence for this was the unfortunate design of their company mascot, “Wagner” seen on the cigarette packs themselves, but it was enough to destroy sales when the gossip got around.

Hoverboy and Hitler Cigarettes!
by Ty Templeton, January 20, 2011

Further evidence of Tareyton’s mascot debacle can be found on TobaccoDocuments.org:

I managed to locate one of these brass “mascot lighters” on eBay…

(From brass cigarette lighters to brass knuckles, after the fold…)

(more…)

March 29, 2011

The Grape Nuts Anthro-Pack

At top, an illustration from a Grape Nuts ad showing the benevolent ministrations of an anthropomorphic Grape Nuts box for a sickly man. (Note: the flasks by the bed. Medicine?) (via)

The newspaper item on left is from the NY Times, February 28, 1904. I’m guessing that, at that time, there were no editorial rules in place requiring “Advertisement” to appear above. The same “story” appeared in a number of periodicals around the same time.

The ad on the right shows Post’s “The Road to Wellville" pamphlet or “keen, little book,” which T.J. Boyle entitled his book after—about Kellogg’s “Battle Creek Sanitarium.” (Note: C.W. Post spent time in Kellogg’s Sanitarium)

This Little Book FREE.

A Keen, Snappy Little Book
To be Found in Packages.

A copy is placed in every third pkg. of

Grape-Nuts

One of the best known surgeons in America voluntarily wrote a 2-page letter favorably analyzing the healthful suggestions in “The Road to Wellville.”

Some profound facts appear that are new to most persons.

Get a pkg. and study the little book. It wins its own way, and adds to your stock of knowledge.

“There's a Reason”

More Grape=Nuts anthro-pack ads (via)

(One more Grape Nuts anthro-pack, after the fold…)

(more…)

February 7, 2011

McSweeney’s Head Box

Recently spotted at Barnes & Nobel: Issue No. 36 of McSweeney’s Quarterly—a “head box” with illustrations by Matt Furie. (Note: Illustration on bottom of box shows that this is actually a severed head box.)

This package features the kind of orthographic graphic design we’ve discussed before, but usually it’s the contents of the box that are projected onto the side panels. Here, it’s more like a “serving suggestion” of what you might make of the box’s contents—(your head being the presumptive destination of the ideas contained).

But besides serving as a repository for literary contents, an orthographically projected head also makes a nice diagram to explain our human predisposition toward rectangular, Cartesian coordinates. With eyes facing forward, an ear on either side, it’s only natural we navigate the world in egocentric, rectangular directions: forward, backward, left, right, up, down.

In an earlier post about close-packing polyhedrons, I wondered why packaging so often seems to skew rectangular. Egocentric coordinates could be one explanation. Our skulls may be round, but our ideas are definitely square.

The video below shows what’s in the box.
(The sound track is: “Poodle in the Hen House”)

(See also: Skull Bottles and Our Family of Products)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

February 3, 2011

Wonder Bread Shirt(s)

If you look for T-shirts featuring pictures of packages, you don’t find much. Plenty of T-shirts sport brand logos, but a T-shirt with a straightforward picture of a consumer package is rare.

You can find examples that almost qualify… Sometimes a T-shirt may have enlarged label graphics. In such cases, it’s like the wearer is the package with a T-shirt for a label. (e.g.: this Jack Daniel’s T-shirt) Other times the package is merely an element in a more elaborate illustration.

I thought I’d go ahead and show this example: the Wonder bread “Squeeze Me I’m Fresh” T-shirt. (above) Plenty of T-shirt messages employ innuendo or double-entendre, but it’s unusual to see it done with anthro-packs. (Although I have seen other anthropomorphic Wonder bread T-shirts: here and here.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

January 31, 2011

The Wonder Bread Anthro-Pack

In earlier versions of Wonder Bread’s anthropomorphic mascot—“Freddy, the Fresh Guy”—he is clearly a full-fledged anthropomorphic package—a loaf of bread in a branded bread bag. (In later versions he seems like a single slice of bread.)

The upper left photo, from Felixtcat’s Flickr Photostream is actually a rotating inflatable. (See inset on right)

Regarding the different outfits, my sense is that the Freddy with the bow tie is the earliest—(as in the upper center photo from Thomas Hawk’s Flickr Photostream)—but I could be wrong about that.

The upper right photo from Ken B. Miller's Flickr Photostream shows a costumed mascot in 2004 at the Philadelphia Zoo.

There were a number of anthro-pack premiums created, including the 1998 limited edition Freddy the Fresh Guy plush toy and the ring premium. (ring photos from Ruby Lane and from Tracy’s Toys)…

And along with the Fresh Guy antho-pack, there are also consumer costumes allowing one to inhabit a Wonder Bread persona…

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