Box Vox

packaging as content

February 3, 2012

Capsule Packaging

Following the pharmaceutical thread, the earliest patent for a two-piece, telescoping capsule was granted in 1846 to Jules César Lehuby.

Hard two-piece capsules were first invented in 1846 when Parisian pharmacist J.C. Lehuby was granted French Patent 4435 for “Mes envelopes médicamenteuses”

Division of Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics
Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki

I failed to turn up Lehuby’s patent, but above are patent drawing of various envisioned improvements and refinements by other inventors over the years.

I’m less interested here in ways of packaging capsules, than in the idea that the capsule, itself, is a package. A capsule’s main purpose is to shield us from the bad-tasting medicine it contains. Lehuby compared his invention to a “cylindrical box capable of containing the required medical substance in its interior.”

What is a capsule, if not a tiny, edible container? If you have any lingering doubt that it’s truly a “package” in the modern sense of the word, just consider the extent to which the capsule is branded. (e.g.: Nexium “the purple pill)

Capsule manufacturer, Capsugel even has a “Build You Own Capsule” app, enabling its customers to brand their capsules with Pantone color and logos.

What is that, I ask you, if not “package design?”

The capsule, in fact, is such an intriguing contraption that designers have sought to package other products in them, as well. Usually this is done by carefully implying “vitamins” rather than prescription drugs.

Vitamin Water capsule bottle concept by Cindy Ng & JJ Lee

There is, however, the occasional encapsulated product that will embrace the drug thing, as in the Sunshine Enema music package, in which the music is contained in a capsule-shaped USB drive. (Designed by Jeremy & Erin Fortes)

(More encapsulated products, after the fold…) (more…)

October 11, 2011

Wrench Shaped Tin Box

WrenchMint-main
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.

Candy Cane

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

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August 29, 2011

Evoque Candle’s Patented Box

EvoqueBoxLid

Stopping by Trapp Candle’s booth at Gift Fair, I spoke briefly with Catherine A. O’Kane, a co-inventor of Evoque Candle’s patented box — a container whose lid is, itself, a container with its own lid.

A candle box for storing individual candles and candle accessories. The box includes a housing with a top opening, a tray for storing candle accessories that fits within the top opening of the housing, and a slidable lid for covering the tray. The housing has a bottom and four side walls that define the top opening. The tray has a bottom integral with four tray side walls that, when placed within the opening of the housing, engage the interior surface of housing side walls to create an airtight enclosure. The lid has a top cover and three side walls, two of which are adapted to slidably engage any two opposing side walls of the tray. The top cover includes a snap-lock for engaging one of tray walls when the lid is in the closed position.

Inventors: Joseph M. Rowley, Jr., Catherine A. O'Kane
Assignee: Faultless Starch-Bon Ami Company

I like the phrase “slidably engage” and I like the idea of a container serving as a lid for another container. (See also: Corks as Containers)

(The patent follows, after the fold…)

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January 14, 2011

Toblerone Fractal Pack

PrismBox

Another inherently fractal display pack: the “Toblerone Bulk Candies” box by Ducart Packaging Industries. Prism-shaped box containing prism-shaped candies.

The individual candies, however, are in wrapper-packets rather than their trademark triangular boxes. Which is probably less expensive, but (sadly) serves to make the whole package a little less self-similar.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 6, 2010

Corks as Containers

CorkContainers

From Lynn Hoyt’s “Midnight Coiler“ Etsy Shop: Cork Cubbies™

Another recursive packaging concept that could be taken to further mind-boggling iterations: each smaller cork, a potential container also in need of corking—on and on into infinity.

But, come to think of it, the way she’s doing it is perfect and succinct.

(See also: Fractal)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

November 24, 2010

Campbell’s Thankgiving

Flag-Can

Two things relating to the Package as Pixel thing:

1. An embossed tin Campbell’s Soup sign (circa: 1900–1910)

“A gorgeous and rare embossed tin sign for Campbell’s Soup, predating Warhol’s Pop Art by half a century is an attention getter. Most of these signs were destroyed when public opinion of the day deemed it to be a desecration of the American Flag. It comes to the Julia block with an estimate of $10,000/15,000.” [Sold for $18,400]

2007 Julia Auctions

2. From Canstruction New York 2010: a large Campbell’s Soup can made out of canned food — including other, possibly competing brands (e.g. Hunt’s Sauce).

Similar to Mary Campbell’s Food Can Mandala, Canstruction’s sculptures are later dissembled and donated to community food banks. (See also: Bean Can)

(One more thing, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 18, 2010

Nested Packaging: Surprise Balls & Russian Dolls

Bombay

Bombay Sapphire Layers Christmas Edition (via: Packaging of the World)

Super multi-layered packaging. On the one hand, it attracts and intrigues us. [See: surprise ball]  It heightens the ritual of opening. So many layers—what the hell is in here? The diamond ring that comes in a refrigerator sized box.

On the other hand: super wasteful. So much packaging for such a little thing. You’re Amazon.com and your customers are getting pissed off. (photo below from Tamaraberg’s Flickr Photostream)

WastefulShipping

Sometimes the concept is naturalistic. (e.g. the layers of an onion) Other times, recursive like Matryoshka dolls (Russian nesting dolls).

BigMacCoupon

A McDonald’s coupon promotion (via: PopSop)

(More layers of nested packaging, after the fold…)

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September 10, 2010

Coke Can Mini Fridge

Koolatron

In case you were wondering what kind of packaging a soda-can-shaped, soda-can-containing mini-fridge might come in, the answer is provided, here…

(After the, fold..)

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August 27, 2010

Dorothy Torivio’s Avant-Garde Seed Jars

DorothyT-490

top: Black-on-white eyedazzler seed jar, c. 2000 (Photo via: Vassar.edu); lower photo from eBay

Another type of helical container: Dorothy Torivio’s “eye dazzler” seed jars.

Dorothy’s idea for this design came from a pottery shard she found on the Acoma reservation. Originally, she says, it was a series of simple squares, half white, half black, so she called this idea the “Day and Night” pattern. In this interpretation, the square has become a rectangle, actually a parallelogram, and executed in one of her famous spirals. Her trademark is executing the same number of geometric shapes, regardless of the variance in circumference.

Canyon Art

TopViewsPhoto on right via: Tribal Expressions

Although “eye dazzler” was originally used as a derogatory term by 19th Century collectors of Navajo rugs—(who preferred the earlier, subtler colors to the bright colors that later became available due to railroads)—Torivio’s work (like early “Op Art”) is mostly black and white. Dazzling in pattern, but ascetic and restrained in color. (See also: The Bridget Riley Look)

It is impossible to analyze the mathematical precision of these designs, which she works out in her mind and puts directly on the pot. She looks at a pot, visually divides it in half, then in quarters, then eighths, sixteenths, and more, and keeps dividing until there is no room on the surface. After the mental gymnastics, she begins to paint the pot…

…One day Dorothy was having an exhibition of her pottery in his gallery, at which she was being honored. A man approached her saying that he was a mathematics professor, and he had been trying for a long time to figure out on his computer how she did the designs until he finally arrived at the solution. Whereupon Dorothy laughed, pointed her finger to her brow, and said, “My brain is my computer.”

–Susan Peterson, Women Artists of the American West

(More Torivio seed jars, after the fold…)

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August 20, 2010

Liquid Smoke Label with Droste Effect

DrostFigaroSmoke

One of the liquid smoke companies whose bottles we featured in the previous post was Figaro out of Mesquite, Texas. (Now owned by Baumer Foods). Another early Fagaro label (above) features some before-&-after “old way—new way” illustrations that seem very similar to illustrations used by Kauser & Brother.

But the special feature of this label is the inclusion of a Droste effect bottle. (See: Droste Effect Packaging) I don’t have any closer view of this label, but it clearly duplicates the same bottle with the same before-&-after illustration, on a smaller scale. (And, presumably, on and on into infinity.)

On Monday, we’ll be featuring a few more Droste effect packs that have eluded me up until recently.

(Another photo with vintage Figaro jugs, after the fold…)

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May 12, 2010

Polyhedral Roundup: Folding Cartons

PrismChainPack

I’ve been intending for a while to do a little survey of recent polyhedral packaging. Sylvain Allard, in his Packaging UQAM blog, shows a great affinity for geometric solutions to packaging problems. So it seems fitting to start with something from there.

1. Laurence Gregoire’s proposed chocolate packaging, above, features a triangular package that unwinds into a string of 10 connected prism-shaped boxes. It’s a sort of fractal pack since the shape of each part is similar to the whole. (And the logo looks like the second iteration of a Sierpinski triangle.) 

Stephbaxter

2. New Zealand-based Steph Baxter’s proposed “recycled tissue” packaging is reminiscent of some recent triangular Kleenex boxes. Except that, in her design, the prism-shaped boxes are tied together in a hexagonal set of six. Also: her graphics tell a 6-panel story about recycled paper.

DualbonbonPack

3. Diego Hodgson’s dual Bon O Bon package is based—not on prisms—but on antiprisms. Two square antiprisms are combined to form a hinged dual-package—with each side containing a different flavor of candy. (See also: Nerds)

Nescafe

4. Nescafe display packaging by Alberto Vasquez of igen Design and Éva Sümegi & Richard Nagy of Co&co Communication: cube-shaped carton unfolds into a triangular (prism-shaped) POP display.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 29, 2009

Cross-Category Displays (Milk Carton Shaped)

MilkCartonDisplays

“Cross-category,” in the sense that cookies and baby clothes are not generally packaged (or displayed) in milk cartons.

As discussed in our previous post, cookies are sometimes marketed as an accompaniment to milk. (And vice versa.) While Mother’s Cookies are not, themselves, packaged in a milk carton, the milk-carton-shaped P.O.P. display (above, left) poses the question: “As long as you’re buying milk, why not pick up some cookies?”

The self-similar Freshwear display (above right) makes a fractal point about its unconventional packaging for baby clothes.

The Mother’s Cookies Milk Carton Display was created by Harbor Industries, Inc. (via: Creative)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

December 3, 2009

Fractal Jenga Box

SingleBox A fractal-pack idea from the high concept section of London-based The Core’s website…

Designed to resemble one of the building blocks it contains, this self-similar Jenga box could, itself, be stacked like Jenga blocks for an in-store display. (More about how packaging can be fractal: here, here, here, here, here, here & here)

(Note: I extracted the single box on the right from The Core’s picture of stacked boxes below.)

Jenga 

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

 

November 30, 2009

Fractal Flip Top Box Dispensor

Another self-similar packaging display: Faisal A. Zakria’s 3D animation of a Marlboro cigarette-pack-shaped wall dispenser.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

November 27, 2009

John Norwood’s Cigarette Box Pyramids

MarlboroPyrimid

Queens-based artist, John Norwood’s pyramidal sculptures from collected Marlboro boxes. Another example of an artist making use of materials at hand—which often turn out to be used packaging. (See: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) In this case, of course, the medium is also evidence of the artist’s smoking habits and brand preference.

Similar to Marlboro’s own puzzle 4-pack package and other packaging mosaics—(see: Peter Blake)—Norwood’s geometric stacking arrangements seem related to Marlboro’s iconic design. The sculptures follow the same diagonals as the arrow-like “red roof” graphics on the cigarette packs, themselves. Norwood’s fractal-like arrangement uses the packs to create larger, somewhat diffused versions of themselves in a manner similar to Tom Friedman’s reassembled boxes.  

(More, after the fold…)

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September 16, 2009

IlliteRAT with Alpha-bits



IlliteRAT ©1976 David Wilder (starring my pet rat, Lucky)

Alpha-bitsBox751Not the first time we’ve mentioned rats (or mice) here on box vox and, as previously disclosed, I myself, once had a pet rat. Given to me by another rodent-loving classmate at RISD, “Lucky” played a starring role in my friend, David Wilder’s video, illiteRAT. Hadn’t seen this tape in over 30 years, but I think its conceptual rigor still holds up.

And it was nice for me to see the little feller again, after all this time. (I don’t really remember what the cereal box looked like that Lucky’s Alpha-bits came in. Lets just say, for arguments sake, that it was the one on the left—photo from The Imaginary World—with the mouth-shaped, faux die cut window.)

In my last year at school, I lived in an office building in downtown Providence where I’d let Lucky scamper, dog-like, about the loft. It’s surprising how frisky a rat can be.

I recall eating a lot of ice-cream cones one Summer. (This was before I found out I was diabetic.) I got into a habit of methodically reducing the size of the ice-cream cone—keeping it in classic proportions—until I had formed a miniature, rat-size ice-cream cone. This, I would then present to Lucky and he’d grab it in his hands and eagerly finish it off. (Sort of fractal, now that I think of it…)

Sadly, my free-range policy of giving Lucky the run of the place, ultimately led to his demise. Turned out there were dusty old trays of rat poison under the radiators, that I didn’t know were there.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

August 14, 2009

Cadbury Egg Shaped Car(s)

CadburyEgg
Photo of car on right from Gothickma’s Flickr Photostream

Cadbury’s foil-wrapped, creme-filled chocolate improvement upon the egg—the very egg, which many regard as sufficiently “perfect” in its own right. And then, as if to guild the Easter lily even further: a Cadbury Creme Egg shaped car. Another package-shaped vehicle. (Also see: vehicle-shaped packaging.)

And this ‘humorous’ clip about the car—(doing the self-similar, fractal thing, as well as the packaging costume thing).



(More egg-shaped vehicles, after the fold…)

(more…)

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