packaging as content

January 27, 2012

The Old Package Design Feed Bag

If you read this blog by way of email subscription or RSS feed, you may have wondered why box vox suddenly stopped posting this past week. The fact is, I’ve had my hands full trying to migrate this blog from TypePad to a WordPress site hosted on our own BeachPackagingDesign site. There were actually three posts made since the switch, but it only dawned on me yesterday that feed subscribers were being orphaned by the move. Now that I’ve updated the RSS feed, I’m hoping everyone who opted in will continue receiving our ultra-significant package design missives.

Feed Bags: 3 kinds

1. Feed bags for horses (sold for $88.13 at Cowan Auctions)

2. Bag packaging for animal feed (for sale for $14 from shepshaberdashery’s Etsy Store)

3. Candy “feeding bags” from a vintage ad in a 1911 issue of International Confectioner, sold for only 1¢ each (via: The Candy Professor)

January 25, 2012

Ceci n’est pas une Skippers pipe

Jonna Perdersen (whose sculptures we looked at yesterday) entitled the painting above “This Is a Pipe.” Making clever use of a brand of licorice pipes that I was not aware of —“Skippers Pipes”—and making reference to that popular paradox of representational art: The Treachery of Images by René Magritte. In Magritte’s painting a pipe appears above a caption that declares in French, “This is not a pipe”…

The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe,” I’d have been lying!

In Pedersen’s painting, Magritte’s paradox is given an additional twist, since the product portrayed is, itself, a faux pipe. [Full disclosure: when I was in art school, I combined a 6 inch lenngth of galvanized heating pipe with an elbow joint (forming a pipe-like shape) and gave it the old “Ceci n’est pas une pipe inscription.]

Originally trademarked in 1966 by Chicago based Leaf Brands, Inc., the product has recently come under fire as a simulated tobacco candy product.(like candy cigarettes) and appears to be somewhat discontinued. That is to say, I can find no mention of it on Leaf’s web site.

Matching Skippers Pipes wrapper photo from mulch.thief’s Flickr Photostream

Upper left: photo from Christiane Torden; on right: counter top display box from Fine Little Day; lower photo from After The Denim

Note how the lower box has additional faux features. This is not a wooden gift box tied up with red string.

(My own non-pipe work, after the fold…)

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January 12, 2012

Purple Cow Packaging

Vintage Holloway’s Purple Cow candy wrapper from Jason LieBig’s Flickr Photostream; William’s Purple Cow Lager can from The Beer Can Guide; Milka Chocolate’s purple cow shaped folding carton (via: Packaging of the World); a vintage “purple cow” fruit label for Washington apples for sale on eBay ($250)

Based on an 1895 poem by Gelett Burgess, a “purple cow” generally meant something “out of the ordinary” or something you don’t see every day. As depicted in these vintage packages, each with its whimsical cow illustration, the concept was fine.

I’m not so accepting of the new over-arching definition of “purple cow” as something remarkably innovative, as set forth in Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. Because of this book, some people are now calling any ground-breaking, category disrupting product a “purple cow.”

For some reason, I find this new meaning a loathsome thing. To me, the name “purple cow” diminishes the hard work of innovation, making it sound like something merely capricous.

I doubt Steve Jobs would ever have given one of Apple’s products as insipid a name as “purple cow” and yet all over the place there are people now saying that the iPad and the iPhone are “purple cows.”

You need look no further than the scapbooking craft company The Purple Cows to understand the uncool connotations that this name carries.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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…)

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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…)

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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

November 4, 2011

Packaging as Prom Theme

Left: conceptual Tide dress photo by Ryan Yoon, styling by Hissa Igarashi (via MKTG); middle: Katell Gelebart’s Little Friskies coat; right: Frank Sorbier’s 2010 recycled wrappers dress

It’s high-concept/high-fashion to dress models in recycled packaging, but the same idea has been a popular prom theme for some time now…

Top left: DuctTapeRockStar’s Doritos bag prom dress; top right: StrawberryOrange’s “recycled prom dress”; middle: Gondabo’s Coke can tuxedo (“Yeah, I made my prom tux out of coke cans… because I'm just that cool…”); bottom left: Molly Burt-Westvig’s Skittles wrapper prom dress; bottom right: AnnieMarie88’s Starburst wrapper prom dress

(See also: Packaging as Wardrobe)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 31, 2011

Hexagonal Halloween Candy Package Design

(A vintage, hexagonal, head-shaped carton with a jack-o’-lantern style die-cut face.) According to the Candy Professor:

“This hexagonal carton is an award winning package distributed by the Sierra Candy Company in 1956.”

Not clear who designed the package or what entitity awarded the award. The same box appears to have also been used by the J.D. Fine Candy Company. (Color photos are from Bindlegrim’s Flickr Photostream; the black and white photo is from Confectioners’s Journal, April 1956)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 27, 2011

Oxydol and Opal

On left is the early (earliest?) package design for Oxydol soap powder, introduced in 1914 by the William Waltke Soap Company. On right is the candy packaging for Opal Pastilles, designed in 1946 by Atli Már Árnason, one of the founders FÍT, the Icelandic Design Center. (via: CoolHunting)

Left: a collection of vintage Oxydol boxes (photo from iCollector.com); on right: varieties of Opal with color as differentiator

A later version of Oxydol was designed by Donald Deskey in 1959 (who also designed the Tide box in 1947) but the design of the early Oxydol box (with the concentric circles) appears to be unknown. Which is to say, that I can find no mention online, so the designer is unknown to me, at least.)

The Opal package with the multi-colored concentric bands contains a fruit-flavored assortment.

(Television commercial for both products and one more thing, after the fold…)

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October 11, 2011

Wrench Shaped Tin Box

WrenchMints come in a “Wrench Shaped Tin Box” designed and patented by company founder, Eddy Rubin.

It first struck me as an oddly oblique concept for a mints package to be wrench shaped, but once I saw their tag-line —“When your breath is broken … fix it!” — I could appreciate the craftsmanship of its inner logic.

(Rubin’s design patent and one more thing, after the fold…)

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September 9, 2011

Spectral Branding: Color as Part of the Larger Whole

Arda Kissoyan’s rebranding for “Salgado Grand Crus” chocolate uses color to differentiate between varieties. There’s been a lot of recent multicolor package design for chocolate product lines. (See also: Green & Black and 100% Chocolate Cafe)

As with other “Rainbow Array Packaging” (as well as the PANTONE products we were recently looking at) the full effect is in seeing the entire product range. One product by itself is is just one color, but all together they add up to the whole visible spectrum.

In this way, using color as a differentiator is a similar to the “incomplete” package design idea we were looking at yesterday. One might even say that any single color, by itself, is incomplete. A visual need for color completion might tend encourage a consumer to purchase the whole set. Or maybe one just hopes that a favorite color package contains a favorite flavor.

I was also intrigued by Kissoyan’s flavor diagram on the back of these packs…

“The package also contains extensive information about the product and its origin, and graphs representing the aroma descriptors (tasting notes) and the intensity in the mouth (taste intensity) of each type of cocoa.”

Attempting to map flavors on Cartesian coordinates, this chart looks quite a bit like charts mapping color gamut. (See inset on right)

The idea of that colors and flavors are somehow analogous is very reminiscent of color synesthesia which has its own implications for package design.

(Some additional photos of Kissoyan’s package design for “Salgado Grand Crus,” after the fold…)

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August 24, 2011

Package Design on Your iPhone

Inexplicable drawn to Zero Gravity’s both at Gift Fair. When I saw some of their package-design iPhone cases, I figured that’s what must have been calling to me. Not all of their phone cases are designed to resemble consumer packaged goods, but enough so that it raises some questions. We’ve seen other cases of devices being made to look like packaging… cameras, radios and, yes, telephones.

But since Apple is unlikely to come out with cross-branded varieties of iPhone, if you are determined to possess a Velveeta iPhone, it falls to 3rd party venders of iPhone accessories to meet your needs.

Of course, there are also other package-related iPhone cases with different degrees of DIY.

Joanna Behar was experimenting with a candy-branded iPhone—(candy wrappers placed underneath a transparent iPhone case)…

In both of these examples—Zero Gravity’s faux-packaging and Johanna Behar’s DIY candy branding—the glossy plastic surface belies any sincere intention to fool the eye. These are still coveted hi-tech gadgets—with a glossy veneer of ironic low-brow branding.

Another DIY example: “Randomly Ross” has a Flickr Photostream about making iPhone cases from juice boxes and also offers them for sale on ArtBoxe.

Here’s a case in which the packaging cover serves a more truly undercover role:

“I was trying to find a material to make a case for electronic devices that would be durable, but not attract attention. Truth be told, the thing that first attracted me to juice-boxes is that they are ubiquitous and uninteresting. If someone looks into your purse and sees a book, some keys and a juice box, they aren't going to take the juice box. What if they see a brand new iPhone?”

In titling this post, it struck me how “Package Design on Your iPhone” could be interpreted two ways: as a covering to put on your iPhone and as an activity to do on your iPhone. Then I wondered, is there an app for that?

And I’m not the first pose the question. (See: Richard Shear’s Free iPhone package design app)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

August 19, 2011

Worm Bottles

“Worm bottles”—3 kinds:

1. The Lucas Gusano Liquid Candy Bottle

On left: photo of Lucas Gusano candy bottle by Elías Arriazola Lujambio; on right: Lucas Gusano packet & “Salsaghetti” (from Brian Temple’s Flickr Photostream)

You may recognize the Lucas Gusano bottle as another “accordion bottle” of the type we were looking at yesterday. (“Cool collapsible container contracts like an accordion!”)

The segmented shape of the bottle, however, in this case is also a metaphor for “gusano” — the Spanish word for “worm”— specifically, for the type of segmented larva that may or may not be a valid addition to certain alcoholic beverages made in Mexico.

Interestingly, this product also comes in a packet as a hot “salsa” sauce for the gummy worms of Lucas’s “Salsaghetti” candy. Mixing flavors, food ethnicities and metaphors with equal abandon, this candy-as-Mexican/Italian-spaghetti-as-worms product also includes a bit of cross-marketing in the form of a “Gusano” packet. Note how the packet features an illustration of a squirting Gusano candy bottle. (See also: Lucas “Crazy Hair” Candy)

2. Casta Gusano Real Reposado “Worm Bottle”

Casta Gusano Real Reposado is a tequila that comes in a figural, worm shaped bottle, but among true tequila aficionados, the reasons are controversial.

These whimsical bottles always turn a few heads. This product used to be called Gusano Real but the name was later changed to “Casta — Worm Bottle.” When I first saw these I thought they were a major tequila blunder propagated by one of the most common myths and misnomers about tequila. The fact that you’re reading this page means you probably know there are no worms in tequila at all (worms are put in some brands of Mezcal) and thank goodness there is no worm in this particularly good reposado. However, Gusanos (worms) commonly live inside agave plants, and this being a 100% Agave Tequila, distilled & bottled in Mexico, is, I’m sure where the image comes from. Plus a cool looking bottle doesn’t hurt if you’re marketing Tequila.

Poco Tequila

That’s right. It was never tequila that was supposed to have a worm. It was mezcal. (Sometimes.)

It is a misconception that some tequilas contain a ‘worm’ in the bottle. Only certain mezcals, usually from the state of Oaxaca, are ever sold con gusano, and that only began as a marketing gimmick in the 1940s. The worm is actually the larval form of the moth Hypopta agavis that lives on the agave plant. Finding one in the plant during processing indicates an infestation and, correspondingly, a lower quality product. However this misconception continues, and even with all the effort and marketing to represent tequila as a premium—similar to the way cognac is viewed in relation to brandy—there are some opportunist producers for the shooters-and-fun market who blur these boundaries.

Wikipedia entry on Mezcal

Which brings us to #3…

3. Bottles containing worms

On left: Gusano de Maguey in a bottle, waiting to be added to finished Mezcal (via: Wikipedia); on right a mini-bottle of Mezcal with large gusano (photo by Bud Spencer)

Alternate photo caption: Why settle for one measly worm at the bottom of a bottle of mezcal when you could be enjoying an entire jug?

Conclusions? If you’re like me (too old for gummy worms, but have not yet even tasted mezcal), I say: “Don’t get pressured into eating the souvineer gusano!” Choosing not to ingest this 1940s marketing gimmick does not make you culturally shallow or otherwise inauthentic. It just makes you less of a carnival geek.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

August 17, 2011

Accordion Packs

Although one of the packages above is literally an accordion-shaped package, by “accordion pack” I really mean it more generally, as packages, designed “with features resembling an accordion or its bellows.”

With a need to contain varying quantities of a product, the bellows-like ability to smoothly expand and contract is a useful feature that many packages aspire to. The folded gusset of the once ubiquitous brown paper bag is, perhaps, the simplest application of this mechanism.

Here are 5 (more recent) examples:

1. Auberge du Soleil’s “squeeze box” package (designed by Evelio Mattos of Design Packaging Inc.) uses an accordion-like structure, first to protect, and then to expose its contents…

Built completely out of folding board, the squeeze box concept developed for Auberge du Soleil Napa Valley is 100% recyclable. The hand-made truffles are well protected by the internal divider which moves with the box and allows for optimal product display.

Evelio Mattos, LuxCrux

2. Camille Bloch’s “Accordéon” is an assortment of 6 Swiss chocolate bars, contained in a “twin-pack” of tins, connected by a bellows. According to Global Packaging Gallery, this package includes a “music module which plays Swiss music.” I’m interpreting that to mean that the bellows are merely conceptual, that electronic accordian music is emitted and that this package is a simulacrum and not a fully functioning “wind instrument.” (Correct me if I’m wrong.)

3. Popular Noise’s record cover construction for their series of 3-issue “record releases” is also an accordion related package. (via: The Dieline) The bellows-like expansion, is particularly remarkable, considering it appears to be made from a single, unglued piece of rectangular paper:

“The packaging folds out to a beautiful letter-pressed poster containing information about the Journal, the musicians, and the compositional process.”

–The Journal of Popular Noise

(Examples 4 & 5, after the fold…)

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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…)

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August 4, 2011

Jonna Pedersen:
Product Stories & the Inner Lives of Packaging

As branding experts tell it, “narrative marketing” is the best way to sell something. “Tell the product’s story,” they say, “and consumers will listen.” But whatever story the brand chooses to tell, there are other, more personal stories that consumers will also hear.

Danish painter, Jonna Pedersen, explaining her recent focus on packaging, says, “To me, the outside says something about the inside. It’s all about reading the barcode.”

A product logo can unleash half-forgotten memories and sensations. We have all had this experience. Expressing the zeitgeist, consumer products can become cultural icons. Product graphics and packaging obviously matter. Visual impact and narrativity characterize those products that are deemed “classic.”

…A consumer product’s iconography is always ambiguous… A product’s packaging inherently carries a visual or textual content signaling what’s inside. There is no controlling the meanings and values that the consumer subsequently attributes to the product. That is entirely dependent on an individual’s baggage and frames of reference. In principle, the product is open to uncontrollable added meanings.

… Jonna Pedersen’s stories about consumer goods are more than representations of actual objects. They are images of our time. Familiar objects from our cultural heritage are interpreted and painted: graphic imprints and sensual experiences with numerous cultural, social and geographical references. Images of uniquely Danish products alongside images of exotic products, Greek olives or American ketchup, tell a story about an upheaval in Danish (food) culture.

Excerpts from Bente Jensen’s essay, “Product Stories”
from the book Documentary, Jonna Pedersen: Painting

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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…