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.
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.”
(Examples 4 & 5, after the fold…)
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…)
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…
(A couple more photos, after the fold…)
July 21, 2011
2 Oranges: Geometry, Packaging & Ultaviolence
Violent, polyhedral orange chocolate packaging—two kinds:
1. Jessica Comin’s “laranja mecánica” chocolate package (based on Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange) starts out as a rhombic-dodecahedron which can be turned inside out to form a cube. Although the book and the movie made “ultraviolence” a household word, Comin’s packaging concept is violent only to the extent that one empathizes with a box being turned inside out. (via)
One remarkable thing about her transformable pack, is that both shapes—a cube and a rhombic-dodecahedron—will “close pack.” In fact, the rhombic-dodecahedron was the one close-packing shape that I was still on the lookout for. (The other four close-packing polyedrons with regular faces were already accounted for.)
Like our own interactive Gumball cube-pack, “laranja mecánica” is a novel candy package holding a minimal amount of candy. I figure, only 6 chocolate eyeballs, assuming that one goes into each of the 6 pyramid shaped compartments below.
A similar polyhedral model was constructed by W. W. Ross in the late 1800s. His “Exploded Cube” (below) is part of The University of Arizona’s collection of his dissected wooden polyhedrons.
And there’s an animated illustration from Apollonius Math showing how this transformation works…
2. Terry’s Chocolate Oranges (below) also involve polyhedral dissection, but, in Terry’s case, it’s a sphere of chocolate that gets dissected along longitudinal lines.
As for the violence, it’s implicit in the “whack & unwrap” instructions. Many of their television commercials have fun with exaggerating the violence required to open the package. Interesting to note that, in the photo above, the foil-wrapped chocolate orange, was, itself, packaged in a clamshell—the very thing that “wrap rage” was named for.
(The “violent” Whack & Unwrap campaign, after the fold…)
June 27, 2011
Wacky Packages Display Box
7x8x1.25" deep empty box originally contained 48 packs. Topps 1974. Lid art includes grocery bag containing “Wormy Packages, Quacker Oats, Mrs. Klean.” Edge wear with one corner split. Still glossy and Fine. ($75)
via Hakes
(See also: Wacky Packages, Wacky Pack Anecdote, Wacky Pack Press Sheet, Packy Wacks, Supergraphic Wacky Packs and Wacky Packs: Right or Wrong?)
Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design
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.”
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.
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.
Sometimes, even with the most charitable intentions, a package design can be disturbing.
(Packaging that attempts to honor “the fallen”, after the fold…)
June 21, 2011
Package as Vending Machine
Another surprisingly elaborate package for the lowly gumballl. A far cry from the simplicity of the Lucky Cat packets, but no more absurd than our own Gumball Cube Pack.
I bought my miniature gumball-dispensing package, on left, at Rite Aid Pharmacy. I found the counter display picture online.
(Some other gumball machine packages, after the fold…)
May 27, 2011
Mine Enemy’s Candy
Mussolini, Hitler & Hirohito candy boxes, each with an open die-cut mouth (via: Hakes)
I don’t know what it is about candy and war. We’ve had a couple of other posts touching on it… the German Chocolate Hand Grenade… the Candy Bomber…
These candy boxes above, from WWII, feature Axis leaders with die cut mouths, ostensibly a game for children to throw balls into—(the French text on the boxes offers encouragements like “Hitler’s Speech Is Finished” and “A Sharp Movement, It Should Shut Him Up.”)—but I wonder if children didn’t also dispense candy from those mouths.
Which brings us to the War on Terror and Osama bin Laden. While bin Laden has certainly been featured in a number of insulting products here in the United States, children’s candy does not seem to be among them.
Which is not to say that our recently deceased enemy combatant has never appeared on a box of kid’s candy. Consider: Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls.
Photo from: Fullsteam’s Flickr Photostream
Not anti bin Laden candy since it was most popular in Afghanistan and Pakistan and uses that brush script adjective “Super” on the packaging.
In the war on terrorism, this was clearly the enemy’s candy—not meant for consumption in the United States, although, for some reason, available in China.
Manufactured in Pakistan, this product apparently dates back to 2002:
Many vestiges of the Taliban era remain untouched in the beat-up, dusty center of Kandahar, where the ruins of buildings that collapsed during the recent American bombing campaign lie among the ruins of older battles. Venders with carts sell “Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls”—coconut candy manufactured in Pakistan and packaged in pink-and-purple boxes covered with images of bin Laden surrounded by tanks, cruise missiles, and jet fighters.
After the Revolution, by Jon Lee Anderson
The New Yorker, January 28, 2002
Aside from Super Osama bin Laden Kulfa Balls, I know of one other bin Laden candy: Peta’s “Bin Laden Bites” vegan chocolate bars, released in April of last year.
(Photos of Bin Laden Bites packaging, after the fold…)
May 16, 2011
Gumball Cube Pack
©2011 Randy Ludacer, Beach Packaging Design
Seeing projects like Sophie Valentine’s “Capitalism vs. Socialism” and Regina Rebele’s 2008 “Type-Cube” made me wonder if there was a practicable way that this type of “magic folding cube” could be designed as a box to actually contain something.
Ideally, I would have liked it best if the whole thing—all 8 boxes with tucks & glue flaps—could have been folded from a single die-cut shape. That doesn’t appear to be possible, although it was easy enough to get it down to just 4 pieces which must then be hinged together.
But what sort of product should such a package contain? Gumballs, I decided. Stupid, I guess, to envision such an elaborate package for such an inexpensive product, but demographically appropriate as a candy pack for kids. Like something that Topps might have considered doing in the 1970s. And as our video clearly shows, these gumballs really needed to be contained.
Anyway, this is just Gumball Cube-Pack Mach 1. There are some further structural improvements I have in mind to try next. (If you’re listening, Topps, please give us call. We’d love to hook you up.)
(Some still photos, after the fold…)
April 13, 2011
Whitman’s Pickaninny Peppermints Package
I remember once, when driving with my grandmother on Long Island, my brothers and I were aghast when she unexpectedly used the word “pickaninny”—as in, “Oh, look at the cute little pickaninnies!” She seemed to be genuinely unaware that it was an offensive word.
She was clueless, but seeing the packaging above for Whitman’s “Pickaninny Peppermints” one is reminded just how common this sort of cluelessness once was. (See also: Time Magazine’s 1940 headline: “Smart Pickaninnies”)
Stephen F. Whitman & Sons appear to have been similarly clueless. Below is a 1939 letter to the company from Thurgood Marshall, as an attorney for the NAACP, attempting to clue them in:
April 5, 1939
Dear Gentlemen:
A member of our Association has sent to us a package which had contained peppermint candy prepared by your company. The trade name on this package is “Whitman’s Pickaninny Peppermints—Chocolate Covered.”
On behalf of the members of this Association, we protest the use of the term “pickaninny” as applied to young Negro children whose pictures appear on your package. This term is extremely distasteful to Negroes.
We are calling this matter to your attention in the hope that you will discontinue the use of this term on packages of candy manufactured and distributed by you. We have not taken this matter up with our branches as yet, pending a reply from you. We will therefore appreciate an early reply.
Very truly yours,
Thurgood Marshall
Interesting to note that it’s only the term “pickaninny” that Marshall is asking them to remove. The illustrations here are not the out-and-out racist caricatures used elsewhere in those days. If it weren’t for the name (and maybe the watermelon) it could almost pass for a contemporary package design.
(The company’s response, after the fold…)
April 8, 2011
Big Tooth Bubble Gum: Tooth as Container
1979 POP display carton from Dan Goodsell’s Flickr Photostream
We’ll conclude “Teeth Week” with one more ironic candy package: Topps Big Tooth Bubble Gum.
In the 1970s Big Tooth Bubble Gum came packed in the cavities of tooth-shaped plastic containers. Originally these tooth containers were all white. An earlier display carton (below) shows how they could be conveniently worn on a consumer’s neck. (Photo on right from Traci*s Retro’s Flickr Photostream)
Later versions of the container were in an assortment of other colors…
“…this time they upped the ante by producing a rainbow of colors for the plastic tooth-shaped candy containers. Also, they included a lanyard to wear the tooth container around your neck. Cool!”
1971 POP display carton from Jason Liebig’s Flickr Photostream
(Big Tooth Bubble Gum “Rainbow” display, after the fold…)
April 5, 2011
Dentures & Peppermint Packaging
Continuing to chew on the idea of teeth, we have Simon Laliberté’s Pépèrman pack: a denture-shaped candy box with a zipper/tear strip containing peppermints and Canadian satire…
Pépèrman is a nostalgic and irreverent concept speaking to us (Quebecers) about our ancestors and especially about their inability to speak English and their very few teeth. Pépèrman is a tasteless mint candy differentiating itself from mothballs by its cylindrical shape and its three tonnes of granular sugar. It derives its name from the English word “Peppermint” that gradually became “paparmane” and now Pépèrman. As for denturist, one should know that our ancestors would chose to have all their teeth removed at the first sign of pain to avoid exorbitant dentist fees. The pleasure of Pépèrman is to let it melt gently on the tongue without having to chew them. No need to have teeth to enjoy this tasteless delicacy.
Interesting to compare this box to an actual (antique) denture box…
As for the idea of peppermint dentures, I get the paradoxical thing of comparing teeth to candy—(and of chewing teeth!)—but what is it about peppermint and aging?
…Because there’s another “paparmane” flavored product (the Sloche peppermint slushy) that has also made getting old—while still remaining frisky—a big part of their brand promise …
Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design
April 4, 2011
Dino Bites and Dragon Teeth
At top is a 2009 gum packaging concept by BQB.
Have you ever thought how strong the dino’s bite was? At BQB we’re sure the bite was very strong, thus dinosaurs must have had very strong teeth.
As a result of our conceptual training BQB’s designer, Galima Akhmetzyanova came up with a great idea — to create a gum package shaped like dino’s jaws.
(via: PopSop)
Below that, is a similar concept by Topp’s from the 1970s. (Photo of wrapper from Jonathan Mankuta’s Flickr Photostream; illustration of Dragon Teeth display concept from The Imaginary World.)
The dragon’s bubble gum teeth were multicolored. Wish I could have found a photo of that.
(Another photo of this pack unfolded, after the fold…)
March 3, 2011
Messy Package Design
If the dirty & defiled prop packages from Paul McCarthy’s Propo series are a reflection of his interest in “everyday activities and the mess created by them,” what are the implications (if any) for package design?
Messiness may be part of life, but advertising and packaging has usually bent over backwards to present a cleaned-up, idealized version of life. Maybe this is changing. I’m not saying that packages at your supermarket will ever look quite as besmirched as those in McCarthy’s photos, but there is some evidence of a trend in that direction.
Kenetic’s refillable soap bottles featured photos of various cleaning challenges, all a little filthier than we are used to seeing. On our packaging, at least.
While Filthy Foods’ chocolate packaging is not filthy in the literal sense, the expressive drops of chocolate brown ink in their logo are deliberately messy in the same way (and for the same reasons) that lots of recent packaging has random spatters and drips. (Sometimes messiness on a package signals succulent contents.) ”Filthy Foods” as a brand name also acknowledges that in some areas we embrace “filthy” (e.g.: filthy rich).
Kevin J Furst’s concept for a Filthy Boy brand uses a different meaning for “filthy” that’s more closely related to Paul McCarthy’s psychosexual messes. The implication being that it’s the boy’s sexual impulses that make him filthy. (Although the package has been designed to look a little scuffed up as well.) See also: Dirty Girl
The very messy ingredients of Ugly Pizza, when I saw it in 2008, seemed like a radical departure. Recently, however, messiness in food photography has become an accepted trend:
“Right now, people like messy,” says Alison Attenborough, a New York-based food stylist who specializes in editorial work for clients…
The popularity of cooking shows, the eat-local movement and the growth of casual-dining restaurants are reshaping consumers’ views of what makes food look appealing. Where making food look perfect was once a primary task of food stylists and photographers, the new challenge is making messy food look appetizing.
Miriam Gottfried
Food That Looks So Messy, It’s Irresistible
The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2010
It’s probably no accident that all of the “messy” packaging design above, starts with a clean, white background. (More messy packaging tomorrow.)
Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design



























