packaging as content

May 4, 2012

On the Shelf

“On the Shelf”: Michael Craig Martin’s 1970 sculpture (via: Russell Hill)

Three Four sculptures by three four different artists: each featuring bottles with varying levels of liquid.

Top: “Just So” Tony Feher’s 2002 sculpture; bottom: “Landforms” Russell Hill’s 2011 floor sculpture

(I almost forgot about this one…)

Cildo Meireles’s “Inserções em Circuitos Ideológicos” [Insertions in Ideological Circuits] (1970)

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 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 30, 2012

Nickolas Muray’s Plastic Containers

Nickolas Muray: Plastics, Plastic Containers, 1960

1960 Carbro color still lifes of plastic packaging by Nickolas Muray.

Lately we’ve been endlessly photographing, silhouetting and retouching plastic bottles, both as props for other products and as subjects in their own right.

I ought to be sick of the sight of them, but the plastic bottles in these photographs by Nickolas Muray are lit like objects in a Vermeer painting and I like the way they’re arranged.

In the photo above, the bottles are cropped, left and right, so that the viewer imagines an extended (endless?) parade of brands.

In contrast, the same bottles (more or less) in the photograph below, are all contained within the image.

Nickolas Muray: Plastics, Plastic Containers, 1960

After the market crash, Murray turned away from celebrity and theatrical portraiture, and become a pioneering commercial photographer, famous for his creation of many of the conventions of color advertising. He was considered the master of the three-color carbro process.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Nickolas Muray

These later works were done five years before his death in 1965. (Photographs via: George Eastman House)

(Another, of his more fantastical, plastic bottle still lifes, after the fold…)

(more…)

March 27, 2012

The First Really Modern Shampoo

I like the way this 1955 Life Magazine ad for “Mennen shampoo for men” (on left) touts the modernity of its bottle design.

Finally! A modern shampoo for modern man. In a slip-proof, unbreakable bottle.

The patent drawing on the right is a “combination shampoo bottle and massager.” Clearly, these two bottles were related, but I wasn’t sure how. The patent, by Charles M. Zampetti, was obtained three years after the ad, in 1958. So the design patent didn’t appear to cover the Mennen Shampoo bottle’s design. And the patent was not assigned to Mennen…

(Patent-puzzle solved, 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 2, 2012

Pipe Shaped Bottle | Bottle Shaped Pipe

Sorry about the homonymic bait-and-switch. “Smoking pipes,” of course, have little to do with “plumbing pipes.” A disingenuous way, perhaps, to end “Pipe Bottle Week,” but, in my own defense, the whole series really started with Jonna Pedersen’s painting of a Skipper’s Pipes packet. (And I’ve already stipulated to personally conflating the two types of pipe!)

1. Pipe Shaped Bottle
As previously mentioned, Avon has produced figural bottles of almost any object you can name. Over the years they’ve produced quite a few smoking pipe shaped bottles for men’s products. I like that this particular bottle is in the shape of a corncob pipe since that adds yet another layer of figuration to the Treachery of Images: “This is not a corncob pipe.”

2. Bottle Shaped Pipe
This vintage pipe (from Dawnmist Studio Clay Pipe Shop) dissembles in a different way…

This is a pipe that begins looking like a champagne bottle but when unscrewed the lower portion accepts a stem and mouth piece to become a pipe! There are neat metal fittings for the thread and a metal-push fit stem with the mouth piece itself being made of yellow plastic (which is loose). Some of the varnish on the wood of the stem has worn off but otherwise the item is in good condition and was never actually smoked although I think it could have been. Perhaps it was originally made as a gentleman’s celebration gift? The pipe displays well and makes a rather unusual vintage talking piece. The image shows the pipe when assembled and as a complete bottle. Height when assembled 5 inches. (Sold)

Aside from these vintage artifacts, are there any more recent examples?

(Asked and answered, 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 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 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 8, 2012

Rachel Perry Welty’s Miniature Packaging

Rachel Perry Welty’s artwork has sometimes involved the making of miniature folding cartons. Her commissioned work for Johnson & Johnson’s New York lobby (“Product” 2007) for example, features hundreds of miniature versions of their retail boxes, past and present.

Executives from Johnson & Johnson saw a piece called, “Contents of My Pantry,” which featured miniaturized boxes of everyday items like cereal. They later commissioned Welty to create a similar installation of all their products, which now continues to grow larger and larger on a wall at the corporate headquarters.

“I started with the antique products like bunion plasters and keep adding to it as the company adds new products,” Welty said.

Brooks School Website, 2008 (Visiting Artist…)

She’s also made miniature versions of other iconic packaging designs, including a tiny stack of a more contemporary Brillo box — more contemporary than the 1960’s package design of Warhol’s Brillo boxes.

She’s also made a miniaturized survey of currently available Crest Toothpaste varieties (which further illustrates a point I was making in my previous post about how far from Deskey’s original brand packaging Crest has wandered).

“Choice (Crest toothpaste),” (2005) comprises every size and variety of Crest toothpaste available at my local drugstore, re-made in 1 : 5 scale. This installation probes the questionable benefit of choice in our culture and reflects, in an everyday way, our desire to acquire, inflamed by the miniature.

Rachel Perry Welty

The impulse to make miniature replica packaging as artwork is interesting and I was curious about her idea that consumers might be “inflamed” by miniatures. Hunting around a bit, I turned up an interview from 2006 in which she also mentions this idea:

“I take the actual containers, after we consume the contents, and I open up the boxes, photocopy and reduce them. I’m thinking a lot about this miniature inflaming the desire to acquire. They’re made into something cute and precious or something that you want to buy.”

There’s also a contrasting scale at work when she presents a huge accumulation of tiny packages, as in the Johnson & Johnson “Product” installation and the 2007 “Brillo” …methodically organized, but compulsive — like a dollhouse for hoarders.

(A few more photos, after the fold…) (more…)

February 7, 2012

Donald Deskey’s Toothpaste Tubes

Among the many brands that Donald Deskey designed packaging for, was Crest Toothpaste.

Mr. Deskey’s packaging designs are some of the most memorable and ubiquitous. A 20-year association with the Procter & Gamble Company included the design of dozens of household products, including the packaging for Crest toothpaste, which has not changed since its introduction in the 1950’s.

Donald Deskey, Innovative Designer, Dies at 94
by Suzanne Slesin, NY Times, April 30, 1989

Not that Deskey’s package design for Crest remained completely unchanged. In the 1960s Deskey’s red triangle became a left-pointing arrow for a time. (see photo below) By the 1970s the logo was changed to an italic, forward-leaning version, although the letters did retain their basic colors. More recently the dark blue and light blue letters were made the same color, although the red “C” was retained, the triangle is gone although there is still an arrow, but it points in the other direction.

Less well-known, however, were his patents —both design patents and utility patents— for collapsible toothpaste tubes…

Most of these were from the early 1940s and assigned to Bristol Myers. (Were these ever produced?) One of the patents, awarded in 1956 was assigned to Procter & Gamble, which seems related to Crest Toothpaste which was launched in 1955.

(More pictures & patents, after the fold…) (more…)

December 30, 2011

Camouflage Package Design Continued

Lest anyone imagine that camouflage patterns were confined only to beverage packaging, here are some recent examples of camouflage package design, in general.

Because of its star logo, Amour Star seems ready-made for a patriotic camouflage treatment, although it’s debatable how American a “Vienna Sausage” can ever be. (Designed by Bob Oliva)

Jiffy Pop, too, has undergone camouflage treatment. (Via: Lester Of Puppets’s Flickr Photostream)

“Powderflage” powder concealer comes in a camouflage canister. (Note how its camo pattern is made of butterflies.)

Srixon’s camouflaged USO golf balls pack, we’ve mentioned before.

Yoder’s canned bacon comes in a camouflage patterned can.

“A Bathing Ape” (aka: BAPE) has for a while featured camouflage patterns in its branding.

And Huggie’s diapers have also supported our troops through camouflage patterning.

Also: camouflage candy…

and camouflage peanuts, for some reason.

(and one more example, 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…)

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…)

(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…)

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…)

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