packaging as content

November 2, 2011

Anthropomorphic Light Beer

Another anthropomorphized package: the Bud Light Beer bottle costume from the 2009 “Bud Light Golden Wheat” campaign. This spot is entitled “Persistence.” (via: Anonymous Content)

October 7, 2011

Fresh Kill

Last weekend we went to the second “Sneak Peek” for Freshkills Park. Naturally, there was some package-related stuff there, which I’m planning to feature in a few days. In the meantime, I’ve been wanting to post this film by Gordon Matta-Clark for a while now…

Fresh Kill 1972, 12:56 min, color, sound, 16 mm film

This film records the complete process of the destruction of Matta-Clark's truck (which he called "Herman Meydag") by a bulldozer in a rubbish dump. Part of 98.5, a compilation of films by Ed Baynard, George Schneemar and Charles Simons, this piece was shown in Documenta 5 in Kassel, Germany.

(via Freshkills Park blog)

Besides being an interesting conceptual art film in its own right, Fresh Kill provides an indelible “before” picture of the Staten Island landfill in the 1970s, before its ambitious makeover into parkland.

For a contrasting “after” picture, consider the photos below from last weekend’s “Sneak Peek.”

6214797220_f2c77a1a23_b Photo by Raj Kottamasu

(Another photo, after the fold…)

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July 1, 2011

Formula No. 9

On left: an unearthed jar of Charles Antell Fomula No. 9 (photo by Debby Davis); on right: a 1953 photo of Charles Antell’s founder, Charles D. Kasher from Life Magazine

Okay, I know that I said that two weeks of Dead Horse Bay archeology was enough, but we went back there last weekend and I happened to find this Charles Antell “Formula No. 9” jar. Never heard of the product before, but its vintage styling and hormonal claims piqued my interest.

Promoted as a baldness cure—(“Did you ever see a bald-headed sheep?”)—the lanolin-based Formula No. 9 was the premier product of Charles D. Kasher’s Baltimore-based hair care juggernaut: Charles Antell, Inc. (“Antell” was his Mother’s maiden name.)

Originally this milkglass jar’s cap was white, enameled metal. (See photo on right from Pro Commerce) After 50 years buried in a Brooklyn landfill, its rusty cap has now bonded with surrounding rocks and roots. Giving the jar, itself, an epic hairdo.

Pictured above, holding a jar of Formula No. 9 in his hand, Charles D. Kasher looks like an interesting character. The product does not appear to have prevented hair loss in his case.

A gifted huckster, Kasher was a master of the unusually long sales pitch. (The more you tell, the more you sell.) His 30 minute television commercials (with titles like “A Hair Raising Tale”) were among the earliest examples of what would eventually be called, the infomercial…

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have done everything but go into your home and put it on your hair every day for thirty days. Now, it’s up to you. If you’re tired of hair trouble, and you believe as I do that [Charles Antell Formula No. 9] has the answer, step to your telephone now. Call the number you are about to hear. And if you don’t believe, or aren’t convinced, call the number anyhow. Because if it works, and it will, it’s certainly worth the price … if it doesn’t, it has cost you nothing.”

via: NY Folklore

His Life Magazine photo accompanied an article entitled, “Money Makers of a New Era”— subtitled: “Despite taxes they take risks and make money from own businesses.” (Note to today’s neo-Reagan Republicans: Charles Antell, Inc. made loads of money and employed people despite taxes and certain onerous governmental regulations…)

Docket 6102, Charles Antell Co., Inc., and others. Order issued December 18, 1953 The order issued by the Commission in this case prohibited false and misleading advertising of Charles Antell Formula No. 9… This order affected the advertising program of Charles Antell amounting to approximately $8,000,000 annually. Among other things the order forbade claims that Formula No. 9 would prevent baldness or loss of hair…

Annual Report of the Federal Trade Commission
For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1954

One year later, Billboard reported that Kasher had cashed out, leaving the hair care company that he founded and starting a new television advertising company called “Television Advertising Associates” or TAA. (Note how Billboard characterizes Kasher’s career as a “meteoric rise” from “hepest of hep med workers” to “top spot on the totem pole at Charles Antell”) Although he does not yet seem to have a Wikipedia page, Charles D. Kasher was a serial entrepreneur whose main career was yet to be revealed…

(More about Charles D. Kasher, after the fold…)

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February 14, 2011

Frack Pack

Saw Gasland on TV a while back, so I knew about “fracking” and how it had seriously contaminated drinking water here in the United States, but I didn’t know that Canada was thinking of competing with us in the area of flammable drinking water!

Goût de schiste (“Good Taste of Quebec Shale”) is Valérie L’italien’s concept for the commercialization of this particular type of firewater. (d’eau flambé?)

Turning the perceived flaw of flammability into a product feature, she brings us: packaged (flammable) water.

Done as a project for Sylvain Allard’s packaging class at UQAM, Professor Allard has this to say about the new beverage:

… after having promised the moon to oil and gas companies, our good government finds itself in trouble because of the negative reaction of Quebecers who fear the environmental consequences of shale gas. In fact, dramatic stories have been reported in some American states where groundwater got contaminated with the shale gas. Pictures of taps that ignite were shown in the media…

Never mind, we must move forward announced Minister Nathalie Normandeau hammering that shale gas must create wealth. She never explains how this wealth will eventually come back to us though. In fact, like all our natural resources, profits seem more a vision of the mind than a reality. But Nathalie seems convinced that people just don’t get it and that against all odds, her government has the mandate to go forward.

In my packaging class, we believe we have the real solution to increase the collective wealth. Because shale gas is likely to contaminate our groundwater, why resist the temptation to exploit the bonanza? Indeed, what may seem like a catastrophe could become a true treasure. I named the shale gas carbonated water developed by my student Valerie Italian. After Perrier and Sanpellegrino, we would have the Good Taste of Quebec Shale. This particular carbonated water would be available in several flavors and come with a match to burn the excess gas…

via: Packaging UQAM (Read the full story: here)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 27, 2010

Bouzouki-bots & Ionic Ouzo Bottle Caps

After yesterday’s post about Annabouboula’s ouzo-style CD package, it might have been nice to do a whole “Greek Week,” but I only have enough material for a Greek couple of days… Think of it as a mid-week “Greek Weekend.” I try not to blog on the actual weekend. (Seldom on Saturday. Never on Sunday.)

The bouzouki-shaped ouzo bottle (shown above, left and center) is part of the same figural bottle tradition that brought us other stinged-instrument bottles: viobots and banjobots. Are bouzouki-shaped bottles called “bouzoukibots?” I don’t know, but I’m guessing they are highly collectible.

The column-shaped Ouzo bottle on the right features a large Ionic capital as a bottle cap and is obviously a prized collectible object.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 21, 2010

The Road

Three end-of-the-world packaging scenes from The Road:

1. The underground bunker scene

The point I want to make about this scene—(aside from namechecking of packaged food brands)—is this business about “the people.“

In Tuesday’s post about fallout shelters, I included a quote from Thomas Hine about how the supermarket “replaces people with packages.”

The implications are similar here. For the man and the boy in the hidden bunker, an adequate supply of packaged food appears to be a pretty good trade-off: a huge stockpile of bottled beverages, canned foods and bags of Cheetos, replacing the presumably deceased people who had originally put it all there. In the book, the thanking of the people is little different:

Do you think we should thank the people?

The people?

The people who gave us all this.

Well. Yes, I guess we could do that.

Will you do it?

Why dont you?

I dont know how.

Yes you do. You know how to say thank you.

The boy sat staring at his plate. He seemed lost. The man was about to speak when he said: Dear people, thank you for all this food and stuff. We know that you saved it for yourself and if you were here we wouldnt eat it no matter how hungry we were and we’re sorry that you didnt get to eat it and we hope that you’re safe in heaven with God.

–Cormac McCarthy, The Road

(Two more package-related scenes from The Road, after the fold…)

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October 8, 2010

Opening Bottle Credits

Back in May, box vox featured some packaging-related opening title sequences. Here are two more—each including an electric guitar soundtrack and a multitude of bottles.

The one below (via: Watch The Titles) is for “Kill Your Friends,” Kris Clarkin’s proposed film adaption of John Niven’s book of the same name:

Haven’t read the book, but I gather that the story’s protagonist is an indie music A&R man who becomes a serial killer:

Stelfox freely indulges in an unending orgy of self-gratification. But the industry is changing fast and the hits are drying up, and the only way he’s going to salvage his sagging career is by taking the idea of “cutthroat” to murderous new levels.

Harper Collins

The bottles here signify excess & moral turpitude, setting the scene for the “unending orgy of self-gratification” mentioned above—or the packaging aftermath of such. The music is by Richard Lightman, whose name appears in the credits (apporopriately enough) on an album cover.

The second opening title sequence (with another multitude of bottles), is actually the one that that I saw first: HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Here the bottles are a reference to prohibition & bootlegging in Atlantic City—(the bailiwick of this TV series)—as well as implying a certain message-in-a-bottle thing…

Initially, I was irritated by the anachronistic electric guitar music of this intro. Was there no music from the period that might have signaled “Nucky” Thompson’s inner psyche just as effectively? But now that I know it’s a song by The Brian Jonestown Massacre, I’m suddenly willing to cut them some slack because I do dig it.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 14, 2010

Nathan Gibb’s Crayola Monologues

On left: Nathan Gibb’s crayon collection, illustrating Crayola’s 1962 name change from “Flesh” to “Peach”; on right: an 8-pack box of Crayola’s “Multicultural Crayons” (both photos are from Nathan Gibb’s Flickr Photostream)

When I was a kid growing up in Florida—(where orange juice & Caucasian-suntans were the dominant norm)—I somehow settled on the orange crayon as the one that most embodied the ideal skin color.

Last Friday’s post about patented crayon packaging included one box,
in which the crayons represented people—(clowns in a circus text). The video below, however, takes the crayons-as-people analogy to its logical conclusion: as a
metaphor for skin color.

Nathan Gibb’s 2003 Crayola Monologues “uses the crayon as a human metaphor for exploring color and identity in the United States” as well as pointing out Crayola’s (and our culture’s) recent history of race-based color names for crayons.

Regarding my own childhood choice of orange as a skin color, I’m thinking that it must have been partly due to a limited pallet of the 8 original colors. If I’d had the color choices contained in the “Multicultural Crayons” box, above, perhaps I would have identified with a different color.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 8, 2010

Helmut Smits’s Drum Kit (& other package-related works)

Drum Kit, 2003 (tin cans, metal wire)

“Helmut Smits is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.”

Not all of Helmut Smits’ work is package-related, but enough so that, if I were a more patient and strategic man, I could cherry-pick images from his web site to feature here—one at a time—for quite a while. Instead, I’m presenting them as I found them—all at once.

On On left: “0.26 Gallon of Oil” 2007 (1L Coca-Cola bottle filled with oil) Photo by Lotte Stekelenburg; on right: “The Real Thing” 2006 (An installation to filter Coca-Cola into clean drinking water.) Photo by Rick Messemaker

Above are two separate works from 2006 and 2007 that each involve Coca-Cola. When I look at these now, in 2010, because of what’s going on right now with the on-going BP oil spill, I cannot help but associate both of these artworks with that.

“I liked the fact that oil looks the same as Coca-Cola. One is: the product that America dominates the world with [Coca-Cola], the other is: the product that America consumes the most worldwide [oil].”

–Helmut Smits from an interview in Chief Magazine, Issue #7

The Coke bottle full of oil, I had assumed, was a reference to the petroleum used to make PET bottles. Like Luis Camnitzer’s “Coca Cola Bottle filled with a Coca Cola Bottle” here, too, a bottle that contains what it is made of. This, of course, is exactly the sort of negative connotation—(conflating Coke with crude oil)—that Coca-Cola was hoping to address with their recent “PlantBottle™” initiative.

In “the Real Thing” Smits ironically treats Coca-Cola as if it were polluted water—an impurity to be removed so that the water can be made “clean” enough for drinking again. (I’m guessing that, for the foreseeable future, Smits will not be one of those artists, invited by Coca-Cola to design a “limited edition” designer bottle.)

Below, Smits takes a more benign view of “roll-on” deodorant packaging…

(Several more of Helmut Smits works, after the fold…)

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May 17, 2010

Packaging as Opening Title Sequence

In some films (& televisions shows) the titles and opening credits are conveyed via packaging. In 1, 2 & 6 the packaging is used to highlight certain ethical issues about various products—(tobacco, factory-farmed foods, and munitions). Sometimes the packages which appear in the credits support some specific plot point—(as in 3, 5 and 6, for example.) And sometimes, the point is more metaphorical—(as in in 4’s cardboard cut-out world, for example.)

1. In “Thank You for Smoking”—Jason Reitman’s first film—the title design and typography (by Gareth Smith of Shadowplay Studio) were made to resemble cigarette packaging.

“…Jason Reitman, the film’s director, came to us with the idea of using cigarette package designs for the opening title sequence. He had actually created a rough sample quicktime in which he superimposed basic text titles onto images of cigarette packages that he found on the web. It captured the tone of the title sequence nicely, and gave us a great starting point. We extensively researched cigarette package design and were amazed by its sheer variety. We did start to notice, however, that certain elements were often used: the colors gold and red, bold graphic lines and shapes, and images of heraldry. There were, of course, many exceptions. But if you look broadly at cigarette package design, these elements seem to be what make a cigarette package look like a cigarette package. There's something very serious and regal about most cigarette package design.”

2. In Robert Kenner’s “Food Inc.” (title design and typography by Big Star) are made to resemble food packaging and grocery store signage.

(More opening title sequence packaging, after the fold…)

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April 14, 2010

Low Pollution Food Unit

Reading James D. Ashley’s 1970 “Low Pollution Food Unit” —(a patent for edible cereal packaging assigned to The Quaker Oats Company)—gives one a vaguely Soylent Green sort of feeling in it's pragmatic approach to impending ecological disaster:

This invention relates to a low pollution food unit comprising the integral combination of a ready-to-eat breakfast cereal with a new and unique packaging arrangement.

Pollution is increasingly becoming a worldwide concern. One problem that is now present is the magnitude of packaging materials which must be disposed of in some manner… Heretofore, ready to eat cereal packaging has consisted of an inner wrapping which is moisture-proof and is usually a metallic foil or some other nondegradable material which is in turn enclosed in a stiff paper cereal box…

The object of this invention is accomplished by a low pollution food unit comprising a ready-to-eat cereal completely enclosed in an edible milk soluble pouch… The consumer… when ready for consumption will remove the individual portion… place it in the cereal bowl , and add milk thereto. When the milk is added to the packaged product, the package will dissolve and the consumer will eat the entire contents in the same manner that a cereal product is normally consumed.

James D. Ashley
“Low Pollution Food Unit” 1970 (U.S. Patent 3,778,515)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

March 25, 2010

Soda Can Hair Rollers

On left: a still from Lady Gaga’s 2010 “Telephone” video; middle: a still from Ashanti’s 2008 “Good Good” video; on right: a still from Maluca’s 2009 “El Tigeraso” video

I didn’t have any sisters growing up, but when I was a kid, I vaguely recall hearing that teenage girls were purportedly using tin cans of various sizes—(coffee cans, grapefruit juice cans, soup cans)—as hair rollers. This off-label use for used food containers was apparently never well-documented with photos. In those days, the running cultural joke was how terrible women looked whilst beautifying themselves. (See the Heloise column at the end of this post.) I’m guessing that most teenage girls in the 1960s did not want their pictures taken while their hair was up in cans.

Three recent music videos, however, hark back to these economical, improvised hair-rollers, but with a significant cultural difference. What was once just an ad hoc technique for achieving a desired hair style—has now become a style in its own right. The idea of someone embracing the “hair-up-in-rollers” look—(a look that some would regard as collateral damage, at best)—owes quite a bit to abstract expressionism. Just as the abstract expressionist painters of the 1950s rejected the artifice of representational painting in favor of “showing the process”—(brush strokes, drips, etc.)—Lady Gaga, Ashanti, and Maluca are, in a sense, just showing the process of their respective beauty regimens.

There’s a strong undercurrent of Pop Art here, as well, given that these three performers are electing to wear branded consumer packaging as hair accessories. Lady Gaga looks a little wan in her Diet Coke rollers, which reportedly were like the ones her mother used to wear. Ashanti looks a bit prouder in her set of green (beer?) can rollers. Maluca, on the other hand, is positively fierce in her golden* soda-can headdress. She alone wears hair rollers (of various sorts) throughout the entire video. Ashanti’s and Lady Gaga’s videos both feature lots of consumer packaged goods, and both coincidentally feature Wonder Bread.

The conceptual underpinnings of some new postmodern consumer glamour? Whereas tin-can hair-rollers may have been used in the 1960’s it was generally some flowers that you were supposed to be sure to wear in your hair. 50 years later, it’s the cans.

More celebrity soda-can rollers, after the fold…

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March 1, 2010

Packaging and Consumer Confusion

Top photo by Joan Marcus from 9 to 5 The Musical site (Megan Hilty as Doralee, Allison Janney as Violet—holding the boxes—and Stephanie J. Block as Judy); lower photo from Tiny Details dollhouse miniatures site (See also: Dollhouse Packaging)

This weekend I happened to catch some of 9 to 5—(that movie from 1980 starring Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin and Jane Fonda)—on TV. A significant plot point hinges on the issue of consumer confusion between two fictional packaged goods. Violet (played by Lily Tomlin in the movie) inadvertently purchases “Rid O Rat” rat poison, mistaking it for “Skinny n Sweet” artificial sweetener. She puts some in her boss’s coffee before realizing her error, and complications ensue.

Conclusion? While trademark law is generally more concerned with similarly packaged products in the same product category—(unfair competition and all)—clearly, there are also pitfalls to cross-category consumer confusion. (See also: Medicine Cabinet Candy)

Hence, the popular 9 to 5 catch phrase: “It looks just like Skinny ’n Sweet… except for the little skull and crossbones on the label.”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

February 21, 2010

Dead Rabbits and Carrots Beer

Promotional packaging for San Francisco’s Carrots Boutique by advertising firm, Pereira & O’Dell. (Package design variously credited to Chris M. Romero and also Dan Van Der Deen.)

The objective was to create a buzz around this high-end fashion boutique (CARROTS) and specifically around their men’s line, driving new male customers into the store. We created a limited edition, designer beer made from carrots. We brewed the beer, handcrafted the bottle wraps, and applied the labels. The 22(oz.) burlap-wrapped bottles were hand-delivered as gifts to specifically targeted men and the 12(oz.) beers were served at CARROTS-sponsored events and in-store to enhance men’s shopping experiences. Among the hundreds that received the bottle as a gift and the ones that tried it in the store, many people actually placed orders for beer to take home, turning a unique promotional item into a sexy and successful new product. Not to mention creating a buzz around the store.

–Pereira & O’Dell

The label and package design caters to the (presumably male) cartoon sensibility, wherein deceased creatures have X’s for eyes. Hence: a dead rabbit icon whose X-shaped eyes are also echoed in the orange stitching of the burlap “bottle wrap”. The burlap is another macabre touch, wrapping the bottle in a sort of burial shroud. The effect is dark and portentous—albeit in a cute, Tim Burton-ish sort of way.

This is a beer made from carrots, (for a store named “Carrots”) so that explains the rabbit. But why dead? “Dead rabbit” could be taken as a reference to girls getting pregnant—(as in “the rabbit died”)—but that seems unlikely to be the message here…

There was also a “Dead Rabbits” gang in NYC in the 1850s whose story was fictionalized in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. (Again: not likely the intentional reference for us here.)

Is the idea just that Carrots Beer packs such a punch that our rabbit is merely knocked out and not dead at all? That might be closer to it… Plus, multiple Xs have implications with regard to alcoholic beverage quality and —(in the public’s cartoon imagination, at least)— with regard to alcohol potency. Think: XXX.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

February 11, 2010

Nutella & Go: a jar-facade pack

Photo on left via: Global Pack Gallery; photo on right via: Grand Brands

A little like one of those fake buildings from an early Hollywood western—propped up from behind with scaffolding: the Nutella & GO! pack looks like a jar—or a portion of a jar—but is actually more akin to the bottle & jar shaped packets that we covered last week. (Note how the chamber containing the actual Nutella does not extend all the way to the base of the package.)

(Counter-display/case-pack & video, after the fold…)

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February 1, 2010

Cans Without Labels

Animator/cartoonist, John Kricfalusi tells an interesting autobiographical story about his dad’s motivation to buy all the “cans without labels” from their supermarket. His “George Liquor” character (above) plays the thrifty father figure. Below, John K tells the story in his own words.

My Dad used to buy cans without labels because they were cheap. 5 and 10 cents…. He had 2 long shelves downstairs filled with them. He thought he knew how to tell what was inside. He had it down to a science. He would show us a can and start deducing.

“See that? Hmmm…..it’s got a gold lid with 2 rings…. Aha!… 3 rings around the perimeter. Now, we’ll do a sound check. I got an ear for this. It’s a gift!”

He’d shake it and listen to its contents. He’d add up all the clues.

“Yep! This is extra meaty Campbell’s beef stew! Now here’s the rule…. No matter what’s in the can, once we open it… we have to eat whatever’s in it…”

“I like beef stew, Dad!”

“Want me to open it?”

“Go ahead”

“awright, kids remember the rule…”

John K. Stuff

It’s telling that, in order to “pitch” his project, Kricfalusi relies both on his skills as a raconteur as well as a cartoonist. Naturally, I dig the packaging-based story line (dramatically highlighting the importance of labels!) I also like the Ren & Stimpy-ish glee that Kricfalusi shows in George Liquor’s face as he demonstrates his deeply flawed method of sussing out the contents of the unlabeled cans.

(More “Cans Without Labels” artwork from John K., after the fold…)

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December 30, 2009

Cross-Category Packaging (Part 3: Egg Cartons)

Top row, left: ”Soggs,“ socks from Xplorys (the same company that brought us FreshWear baby clothes, packaged in milk cartons); on right: egg shaped candles from Coastal Candle Supply; 2nd row, left: Soso in egg-shaped salt shakers (via the dieline); on right: a six-pack of Tenga “egg” sex toys; 3rd row from left (clockwise): marshmallow eggs (from Cybele-’s Flickr Photostream); Benny Bully’s “egg chop” dog treats; Swatch “CHICCHIRICHI” watch and packaging, and “Dancing Egg” game packaging from Haba Toys; on right “Feeling Egg” LED light set packaging; 4th row, left: chocolate eggs from Thompson Candy; on right: a Language Egg Carton Game; 5th row, left: Disney’s Chicken Little figures packaging (via Stuart Ng Books and Toy Whiz); on right: a craft felt egg carton project via eBay; below that: MailleBox yarn packaging (photo from PutYourFlareOn’s Flickr Photostream); 6th row: children’s “egg” toy packaging; bottom row: Asher Jasper’s packaging for felted creatures

Continuing with the cross-category series—(as defined in Part 1)—here are egg cartons which do not contain eggs. (At least not the genuine, laid-by-a-hen type of egg.)

For Easter candy & chocolate eggs (and other deliberately egg-shaped items) it‘s not really such a stretch to come up with the idea of packaging them like eggs. Not so obvious that socks, sex toys, pet treats, yarn, salt, felt toys & LED lights could also be packaged this way.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design