packaging as content

May 31, 2009

4 Aerosol Paint Can Spin-Offs

I’ve got 4 spray-paint-can related items that I had been planning to ration out one at a time, but since they all seem to have evolved from the same set of cultural chromosomes, I’m now thinking that it would make more sense to look at them all in one fell swoop.

Just to remind ourselves that aerosol paint cans did not always signify renegade street art & graffiti, I give you a historical note about the father of the spray paint can, Edward Seymour. (pictured, above left)

In 1949, Edward Seymour added paint to existing aerosol can technology at his wife Bonnie’s suggestion. Initially designed to demonstrate his aluminum paint, the delivery system itself was instantly popular. Seymour of Sycamore, Inc. still produces aerosol spray paints to this day.

Wikipedia entry on aerosol paint cans

The thing about a spray paint container is that it’s not just a container. It’s also the tool used to apply the paint. And because of that, spray paint cans are natural candidates for being turned into fetish objects signifying graffiti. Like artists’ paint brushes—(see: Jasper Johns)—spray paint cans have taken on the cachet of an entire creative pursuit. Although with spray paint cans there is also a kind of cultural vandalism being embraced. Spray paint is, after all, a packaged product that must now be purchased from a special locked cabinet because its renegade customers may transgress the rules of private & public property.

1. Jake Rankin’s Spray Paint Lamps

Jake Rankin turns used spray paint cans into desk lamps, with the spray nozzle as a switch. Obviously appealing for fans of graffiti and/or fans of upcycling. (Not really sure how often those two demographic groups might overlap.)

I think these lamps have an interesting counterintuitive aspect. Both light and spray paint are thought of and depicted in similar ways—as a sort of expanding, but dissipating ray. Yet the lamp’s light does not emerge from the same place that the spray paint does. The light comes from a bulb in the base of the can rather than the nozzle. I know there are practical reasons for this, but formally and conceptually… I’m just saying.

(via the unconsumption blog)

(3 more aerosol paint can spin-offs, after the fold…)

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May 29, 2009

Peanut Can Tote Bag

Cylindrical tote bag = can of Planter’s dry roasted peanuts. Another pre-owned, packaging-based accessory from FindGreatStuff.com. ($12.00 + $7.99 shipping)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

May 19, 2009

Packaging and Playing Cards Packs

A similar promotional giveaway to the aforementioned cigarette lighters: advertising playing cards. Plenty of tobacco-related packs here as well. Smoking and gambling… is there something about these vices that cries out for cross-marketing? As long as your playing poker maybe you’d also like some Farrow’s A1 Mustard? (top left) or some Reynolds Wrap? (bottom right) 

(all images from eBay auctions)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

April 27, 2009

Weather and Medicine Signals for Daily Reference

More anthropomorphic patent medicines from a turn-of-the-century trade card. Here we have a group of “peaceable packages” doing a sort of maypole dance around the world—in contrast to the combative “pugilistic packaging” of earlier this month. (Ayer’s trade card photos via Dave’s Great Cards)

We've covered other examples of dancing packages here. Usually these are cigarette packs, although they too have, at times, been ascribed with attractive-sounding medicinal properties.

The analogy being advanced in the trade card above is between weather warning flags and medical symptoms:

See some actual J. C. Ayer & Co. packaging: here.

(See the front and back of this trade card in its entirety, after the fold…)

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April 26, 2009

Our Family of Products

Another nice example of the package-as-body concept. This is from a private label redesign for Dutch retail chain, Super deBoer by Amsterdam-based design consultancy, VBAT. (via PopSop)

(Another photo after the fold…)

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April 20, 2009

Mr. Pritt

Top left: Pritt Stick assembly line, circa 1969; top right: earliest Pritt Stick packaging; below that: labeling design changes from 1969–2000; lower left: Mr. Pritt as costumed package mascot; lower right: Russian Cosmonaut Yury Usachev, weightless with Pritt Stick in 2001

Mr. Pritt is the anthropomorphic package mascot for Pritt, an adhesive brand owned by German-based Henkel International. Henkel invented the world’s first glue stick using a lipstick-style applicator in 1969.

I was not the familiar with the Pritt brand, but their history touches on a number of pet boxvox topics:

1. They use an anthropomorphic package as their brand mascot.

2. Sometimes “Mr. Pritt” makes personal appearances as an actor in trade-dress costume

3. Pritt products went to outer space in a Soyuz rocket with Russian Cosmonauts 

March 2001 literally launched Pritt as a “Universe-wide” brand! On March 17, 2001 at precisely 09:23, a Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan carrying a cargo of Pritt products bound for the International Space Station (ISS). On board, Russian Cosmonaut Yury Usachev, Commander of the ISS, personally tested the Pritt products. Both Pritt Stick and Pritt Rollers (Glue and Correction) were tested upon rigorous daily use under zero-gravity and other extreme conditions of space and officially awarded the exclusive seal of “Space Proof Quality”.

(More about Mr. Pritt, after the fold…)

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April 13, 2009

Pugilistic Packaging

Pugilistic packaging from Parsons’ Purgative Pills. (from Tradecards.com)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

April 11, 2009

Package as Metaphor (Part 6)

Top left: an elephant shaped bottle from BottleBooks.com; top center: Nestlé Quick mascot-rabbit-shaped container from Roadside Picture’s Flickr Photostream; ubiquitous bear-shaped honey containers;  2nd row left: Aisha Saati’s hexagonal pig-shaped box for special Edition "Be Lucky" Swatch watch; to the left: a Lacoste cologne box that unfolds into a mascot-crocodile by José Luis Sobrino, of the School of Art Pedro Almodóvar (Ciudad Real) and Juan Vicente Ferreres, from Escola Massana (Barcelona); 3rd row left: Lucid’s Absinth bottle-as-black-cat package (via the Dieline); 3rd row right: kangaroo shaped bottles from Matahina’s Flickr Photostream; bottom left: a dog-shaped Avon perfume bottle from Thelma’s Bring and Buy Boutique; bottom right: Igor Putina’s cow-carton design for milk.

6. Package as Animal

The package is a little animal—(that we identify with). Sort of an extension of the package-as-body concept. We anthropomorphize animals so their bodies = our bodies. Am I over-reaching here? Yeah. I think so too. This will be the last of the package-as-metaphor posts. (Maybe 5 was enough.)

(By the way, I have a “gig” tonight…)

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April 8, 2009

Clorox Disinfecting Wipes Contest

Clorox is holding a contest to create some additional designs for their new disinfecting wipes. I entered this contest and to my (pleasant) surprise… I am one of the ten finalists!

I won’t say which one is mine, but since I know my readers have excellent taste, I’m thinking that if everyone just votes their conscience—(aesthetically speaking)—I might just have a shot at winning this thing.

What’s at stake? An economically stimulating $1,000 Macy’s shopping spree. Plus: “roundtrip, coach-class air transportation for two” to New York City! Less valuable of a prize for me, perhaps, since we live in Staten Island—one of the 5 boroughs of NYC. Still, if I win, then less jet fuel is ignited, making my design the more sustainable package. (Vote: here)

(And while we’re on the subject, check out their vintage anthro-pack, after the fold…)

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April 4, 2009

Bubble Boy & Noom

Two more figural “body-packs” (via: The Imaginary World)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

April 2, 2009

Package as Metaphor (Part 4)

Top left: an Etruscan canopic jar from The British Museum collection; top center left: a man-shaped bottle from Antique-bottles.net forum; top center right: Mrs. Butterworth’s pancake syrup bottle photo from Roadsidepictures’ Flickr Photostream; top right: Mr. Bubbles bubble bath bottle photo from Roadsidepictures’ Flickr Photostream; bottom left: one of the many torso-shaped Jean Paul Gaultier perfume bottles; headless “Bare All” juice drink bottles (via the dieline); headless Calvé sauce bottles (via Enveloop.com)

4. Package as Body

The package is a little body and the product is its soul. At its most literal, this idea goes back to Egyptian sarcophagi & canopic jars—which are, after all, a sort of packaging for the deceased…“to protect the corpse and serve as a house for the ka.”

In our more recent examples, the bodies of product mascots serve as the packaging: Mrs. Butterworth, Mr. Bubbles, et al.

Often the body is truncated. I’m not sure why this is deemed acceptable. In the case of Jean Paul Gaultier, it may be an appropriate fashion reference. Those armless, headless bodies allude to dressmakers’ dummies and store manikins. But what happened to the heads of the “Bare All” juice drink and the Calvé sauce bottles? Are the bottle caps meant to suffice?

Actually, I quite like the way there is nothing at all body-like about the “Bare All” bottle shape. The metaphor relies entirely on a few well-placed lines. (Similar to last month’s Miracle Whip)

There is something limited and literal-minded about full-on representational statues as packaging. I like it much better when the metaphor is more subtle and abstract. For example…

(See subtle and abstract examples, after the fold…)

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March 24, 2009

Package as Metaphor (Part 1)

The title may sound like I’m trying to be Susan Sontag or something. But what I have in mind—(or in the leaky container that I call “my mind”)—is really not so highfalutin.

While the structure and graphics of packaging often invoke metaphors to convey what they contain—(honeycomb-shaped honey jars and the like)—there are a number of metaphors that are used in packaging that point more to the roles that the packaging, itself, plays. (As product container, protection, brand advertising, etc.)

As often happens here, I began looking for a few examples to illustrate a short list of fundamental packaging metaphors, but then I found way too many for just one post. This will, therefore, be the first in a series of posts, each focusing on a different packaging metaphor.

1. Package as Clothing

Rocombe ice cream packaging by Reach Design, Ltd.; middle row, left: “Absolut Masquerade” bottle; on right: Nusa Kitchen soup containers by Thirdperson; bottom left: Zipp's Fruit Infuzions bottles by Parker Williams; on right: an Eristoff Vodka “Christmas” bottle

This relates directly to the anthropomorphic package concept, but in a more subtle way. Trade dress. The idea being, that packaging a product is like getting dressed. (And conversely, that opening a package is like undressing.) That’s the basic metaphor of it. And although it’s a clear example of how people identify with products & brands, it’s not quite as literally anthropomorphic as putting arms, legs, & facial features on a package. It’s more like the products here have somehow donned clothing—(the same as we, humans, do)—while still remaining inanimate, albeit well-dressed, objects.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

March 19, 2009

Miracle Whip Anthro-Pack

From RoadsidePicture’s Flickr Photostream: an anthropomorphic Miracle Whip jar manning the cash register. This illustration is from a 1960s grocers’ magazine ad. (The idea being, that Miracle Whip will sell well in your store.)

I like the way the illustrator has drawn the arm and face as if they were on the surface of the jar. It’s also interesting to note how, in this world, Miracle Whip has attained cognition, while the lesser, generic packages of tuna, ham and cottage cheese have, apparently, not.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

March 5, 2009

Vehicular Spam Can

2005 photo of the promotional SPAM vehicle in St Paul, Minnesota from Waterbottle’s Flickr Photostream

Another faux SPAM can—this one of the vehicular packaging type. (Or should I say, anthropomorphic, vehicular packaging type?

(See how this truck could become your very own, after the fold…)

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February 26, 2009

Depression Milk Show

Left photo via EatMeDaily.com; right photo from the NY Food Museum website

Sort of ironic, that I only learn about this NY Food Museum show (in Brooklyn, just across the river from me) via Moscow-based PopSop website. But, it’s all good: A history of the “Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative” (which, in 1938, the Special Investigation Committee on Un-American Activities cited as a “communist-launched group.”)

The Over Spilt Milk show features: “Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative pamphlets and broadsides, vintage milk cartons, and miniature dioramas…”

I like the arcane tri-foil metal closure on the top of that carton. (I'm just making up my own terminology here—if you know a more accurate name for that type of carton please weigh in!)

The CFMC unveiled their paper milk carton in the first edition of The Link, praising its convenience: “Lighter than bottles to carry (one weighs only 2 oz.); no washing; more sanitary; no exposed pouring surface; closed spout prevents entrance of bacteria and dust.” The lightweight design also improved delivery efficiency. In 1943, Parodneck reported that a delivery route of 135 cases of paper cartons carried 2,700 quarts of milk, compared to the 1500 quarts carried by a bottle route of 125 cases. An emblem of Coop modernism, the paper carton’s convenience and efficiency was celebrated on promotional material, newsletters and at fancy dress parties: a Co-op office manager once attended a League of Mother’s Club Dance wearing “a green dress covered with Co-op literature, a necklace of vouchers, and on her head a ½ pint Co-op milk container.” It was the perfect outfit to characterize the triumphant fulfillment of the CMFC's mission.

–excerpted from the NY Food Museum website

(More photos and info about show, after the fold…)

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February 11, 2009

Slave-Free Chocolate Packaging

Photo from RuSt’s Flickr Photostream

The anti-slave-labor brand with the wacky, retro typography—Tony’s Chocolonely is the creation of Dutch filmmaker, Teun Van de Keuken, who is rapidly becoming the Willy Wonka of human rights.

Van de Keuken brought attention to this issue by personally consuming 19 chocolate bars and then trying (and failing) to get himself prosecuted in Dutch court for “knowingly buying a product made with slave labor”—and made a documentary film about it called “Tony and the Chocolate Factory.” (See the trailer is below:)

(Something else about Tony’s Chocolonely, after the fold…)

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January 26, 2009

bottle w/face

I found it on the curb with some discarded toys and trash. I don’t know what it contained. Do you?

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

(Update! The answer, after the fold…)

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