packaging as content

February 24, 2012

Bottled Can(s)

This photo is from a 2004 Diet Pepsi ad by BBDO Proximity, entitled “Bottled Can.”

Such a simple photo, but its full import was not always fully understood…

“A can of diet Pepsi has been kept inside the bottle to depict the low-calorie quality of the drink. Moreover, a slim body can always be best depicted in the shape of the bottle rather can.”

Ad Punch

Never mind that it’s one brand being contained, like a Trojan Horse, in the packaging of its rival!

In this ad, the cross-referential idea of one type of packaging containing another, has largely overshadowed the more confrontational “brand versus brand” thing. (See also: Blended Soda Brands and The Concept of Coke & Pepsi)

Also hip: the “packaging contrapposto” whereby the neck of the Coke bottle points one way while the business end of the Diet Pepsi can points the other way. (See also: Cocktail in a Toothpaste Tube)

Beverage advertising, however, is not the only context for a can to be situated within a bottle. I have two more examples…

1. There is a method of making contaminated water safe to drink that employs a soda can within a larger, PVC bottle as a pasteurizing apparatus.

Eric Marlow’s 2008 soda bottle pasteurizer is shown on upper right. David Delaney’s 2003 soda bottle pasteurizer is shown on lower right.

2. The other example involves beer rather than soda. In the category of supposedly humorous breweriana, in the subset of “emergency” drinking supplies you will find various versions and brands of the “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass!” gag…

(On eBay, and after the fold…)

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February 21, 2012

Packaging Typography

Packaging Typography: 3 kinds.

1. Letters made out of packages

The cover of Sunday’s NY Times magazine section featured some illustrated typography by Georgina Luck: letters made out of packages. Illustrating an article entitled, “How Companies Learn Your Secrets,” the entire illustration spells out “HEY! YOU’RE HAVING A BABY!”

Another example of a letter form made from different types of packaging is Richard Conn’s “R” made from crushed packaged from a 1998 show in London called “Cast of characters.” (via: All About Lettering)

2. Packaging shaped like letters

Since letters are are flat symbols, any packaging based on letter forms tends to be based primarily on the 3D block style typography. Viktoriya Gadomska’s Vitamin boxes (A–F) and the “MILK” carton by Julien De Repentigny & Gabriel Lefebvre are examples of this approach.

(3rd kind of Packaging Typography, after the fold…) (more…)

February 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…)

February 2, 2012

The Burgopak Slider Pack

Another patented interactive pharmaceutical pack: the Burgopak slider pack…

The invention after which the company is named was made by Yorkshireman, Burgo Wharton, whose fascination with pop-up books gave him the idea for packaging boxes with sliding drawers. You pull out one side and the other side goes out too — people think it’s magic! Burgo patented the idea and the company was formed with Mr Wharton as creative director.

Diary of a packaging innovation, The Daily Telegraph, May 26, 2009

Burgopaks have also been used to package CDs, SIM cards and electronics, but seem to have really caught on as pharmaceutical packaging. The counter-intuitive surprise of pulling in one direction and having something pop out in another direction is the key to this pack’s appeal.

Using a Burgopak to deliver their erectile dysfunction medication, Bayer’s brand manager for Levitra, comes close, but does not quite acknowledge the implied metaphor: “We chose the Burgopak design for our new Levitra formulation because it’s pocket-friendly, discreet and gives the product a playful edge over its competitors.”

Another name for the same brand is “Staxyn” which also comes in a black and orange BurgoPak, just like Levitra pack above. (I’m not sure why Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline created two matching brands for this one drug.) There’s a nice interactive demonstration of the package on the Staxyn website.

Come to think of it, both of their packs remind me of those black “5 Gum” packages.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

February 1, 2012

The GlaxoSmithKline “Diskus^®”

Years ago, when I first started seeing these packages in advertisments for various GlaxoSmithKline inhalant powders, the design looked to me like something produced by some alien technology. (See below the Diskus^® as compared to an alien “cutting disk” from the movie, “Predator.”)

Later I happened to see some patents for the device —(Diskus^® in the US; Accuhaler^® in the UK)— and I realized how ambitious a package it was.

The inhalers that I was previously familiar with had all used aerosol propellants, which the Diskus does not use. This inhaler also has a counter which counts down to “0” the remaining metered doses and unfolds open and closed on a rotational axis. The alien asymmetry of its profile is largely due to the fact that it’s mechanism was designed to be actuated by the thumb of one’s right hand.

I recently got a chance to interact with the alien technology of the Diskus, having been prescribed Advair for a temporary bronchial inflammation.

One thing that could have made more obvious for me, was that you don’t feel like you’re inhaling anything. I wound up impetuously double dosing until I noticed a slight crunchy residue of powder in my mouth. Reading more carefully, I noticed this fact was mentioned later in the instructions.

Last year, Advair was the 4th best-selling prescription drug at $4.7 Billion. (via: Consumer Reports)

Designed by Gregor Anderson, head of GlaxoSmithKline’s “Technical Packaging Centre of Excellence,” the Diskus won a “Gold Award” in the 2003 DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation.

(More about Diskus manufacture and its clockwork interior, after the fold…)

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January 9, 2012

Delsym Package as Remote Control Unit

CPG as RCU. Delsym’s current advertising campaign imagines their product packaging as a television remote control for muting distracting family cough symptoms. (Detail of a print ad by Roy Tuck, on left)

(The print ad in its entirety, after the fold…)

(more…)

November 3, 2011

Medicinal Marijuana Package Design Makeover

Bay Area Green Cross Dispensary, Inc. has recently rebranded their “medical cannabis” product line with a new registered trademark and a new packaging design…

“in response to revised labeling and packaging guidelines issued by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH). The new labels are designed to better inform users that the product is medicine, not food, and to make the product unattractive/unappealing to children.

I’m not sure I agree that the new branding is strictly medicinal. The “freshly baked” tagline puts this logo somewhere between the baked goods section of a supermarket and stoner-culture comedy films like “Half-Baked.”

Also in the same press release is this:

“Our new packaging complies with the new regulations, enhances safety, and integrates the flare and style that The Green Cross is known for.”

In this context, I can’t quite decide whether the use of “flare” (rather than “flair”) is an inadvertent malapropism or an oblique reference to “lighting up. Although it could also refer to a “flare up” of glaucoma or some other medical condition requiring the use of Incredimeds brand medical cannabis.

More information here: Medical Cannabis Edibles —(but no mention the package designer).

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 18, 2011

Bottles and Body Types

Last year, Medical Marketing and Media’s “Best Over-The-Counter Product Advertisement/Campaign Gold Award went to AbelsonTaylor and Abbott Nutrition for their Ensure “Nutrition in Charge” commercials. (CG animation by Bent Image Lab)

In these commercials, an anthropomorphic bottle of Ensure hectors the other anthropomorphic occupants of the fridge (some of whom are fruits & vegetables —others are other packaged foods) about healthy nutrition. It’s unclear whether the Ensure bottle is playing the role of coach or drill-sergeant. Either way, this anthro-pack is clearly a mesomorphic dominant male.

“Ensure has a unique blend of prebiotic fiber to help promote digestive tract health, and antioxidants (vitamins C and E and selenium) to support the immune system.”

In contrast to Ensure’s muscular bottle, consider the pencil-armed, ectomorphic Aktifit bottle. (3D art direction by Champignon Images ; production by Frame Eleven; modeling, UV’s & texturing by Fabio Quaggiotto; compositing by Mike Frei. Agency: TBWA Switzerland)

Aktifit also makes immunological health claims and employs an anthropomorphic bottle, but its contents are probiotic rather than prebiotic.

“Emmi Aktifit is a probiotic drink made from pasteurized skimmed milk, providing the body with lasting strength from the inside. Clinically tested LGG culture stabilizes intestinal flora, promotes digestion and strengthens the body’s immune defences.”

As a character, the European Aktifit bottle shows less aggression — more passive resistance. Apparently immune to cold season, it happily reclines in a beach chair as it snows. (Is this the cold weather of the fridge?)

(More Ensure commericals and some Aktifit “out takes” after the fold…)

(more…)

August 11, 2011

On the “Stree” Where I Live (Pornographic Branding)

In a way, this one’s a follow up to Karen Abel’s PBR flowers. Like her, I found some discarded packaging in an empty planter. Unlike her, I’m not thinking of making these into flowers.

Unusual to see such a sexually explicit illustration on a retail package. If this were a trend, what would we call it? Pornographic branding? Pornographic graphic design? (See also: Packaging Junk)

At first I thought it was a condom package—a common enough form of litter in our neighborhood.

Printed on a fancy holographic foil stock… Muti-national flag icons lined up in a row, but all the text was in Japanese so I couldn’t read what it said. I searched for the UPC number in Google and learned that it’s a Japanese patent-medicine sex-pill called “Stree Overlord” (sometimes misspelled as “Street Overload”) Not a condom package, after all.

It turns out that this product is one of many mysterious “herbal” products sold at the deli on our corner, even though there’s evidence online of the FDA intercepting imports of Stree Overlord because “Required label or labeling appears to not be in English” and because “The article appears to be a new drug without an approved new drug application.”

But those aren’t the only regulations that Mayo Kaisha Pharmacy Export Ltd. is flouting. They are also trampling trademark law. The two characters on the box are Chun-Li and Ryu from the Capcom video game known as “Street Fighter.”

Interestingly, Stree Overlord’s own trademark is also being infringed upon. Their web site has one page complaining:

“It has come to our attention that Stree Overlord has become so popular that many have decided to duplicated and copy from us to try and take away what we have worked so hard for.”

(There are now counterfeit versions of the product being manufactured in China.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

July 26, 2011

Plain Cigarette Packaging

Expanding on Australia’s “plain cigarette packaging” initiative (under which all cigarette packaging would be made generic), Jennifer Noon & Sarah Shaw have envision anti-ergonomic, trapezoidal packs:

“Our primary aim was to change the structure of the pack making it less ergonomic. The pack was developed to be difficult to use and carry, it is hard to fit into pockets due to its triangular shape and the angled inner means the cigarettes are hard to get out. The lid is designed so that it closes efficiently but after a few uses it becomes weak, meaning the cigarettes can fall out if being stored in a ladies handbag.

We decided to use an off putting colour on the outer of the pack choosing a yellow green which was identified to have negative connotations. We then added a mould texture to really emphasise the disgusting feel of the pack and reduce the glamour appeal for young people.”

The idea of deliberately engineering a “weak” lid is interesting… like planned obsolescence, but for a good cause.

Note: the alternating right-side-up / up-side-down close-packing arrangement…

…and a rare example of “open mouth” packs that feature human mouths, rather than cute animal mouths.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

July 25, 2011

Bassett’s Horehound Troches

On left: photo from Sheaff-Ephemera; on right: a photo from eBay

Bassett’s Horehound Troches: another product from the same company that sold Bassett’s Egg Shampoo Cream.

“Troches” is a word we don’t hear much these days. If this product were around now, the word would be “lozenges” or “cough Drops.”

Would have been nice to find a photo of their 25¢ “elegant glass bottle” (a torpedo bottle), but this bottle-shaped trade card is all I could find online.

Before starting the Basset Supply Company, Albert G. Bassett was in the drug store business. Judging by the last line on the back of the trade card, Horehound Troches were also sold on trains.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 28, 2011

Schenley’s Patented Jar Mystery

Recently I saw a design patent for a jar and it struck me that the jar wasn’t much bigger than its cap. The patent didn’t specify what it was designed to contain. I was thinking it would be funny if this jar contained something whose directions called for using “one capful” of the product.

The strange thing is, the patent was assigned to distillers, Shenley Industries. (Note: Paul Rand’s design for Shenley’s Gin packaging above, left)

Assuming the jar didn’t contain a single shot of distilled spirits, I wondered, “What was it meant to hold?”

(Mystery solved, after the fold…)

(more…)

June 15, 2011

Uncapped Landfill Bottle #2

Some vintage medial waste found on the beach at Dead Horse Bay:

1. An injectable medicine vial (shaped just like my insulin bottles, only a litle bigger) with a script “L” on the bottom, identifying its source as Eli Lilly—(again, the same company that manufactures my insulin today). But, who knows what injectable drug this bottle once contained?

2. Part of a huge 20cc glass syringe with Luer-Lok branding. Luer-Lok is Becton, Dickinson’s trademarked name for cofounder, Fairleigh S. Dickinson’s patented hypodermic syringe connection system. No sign of the needle or the plunger.

The contents now washing out of this eroding landfill preceeded the AIDS epidemic by about three decades. So no worries there. Although, as one person familiar with the area put it, “Don’t get too comfortable handling it. The 1950’s were the worst for chemical dumping in our country’s history. The garbage from the 1850’s [on the other hand] is deep in the middle under the airport.”

Not that you can’t find more recent medical waste on a New York City beach. Just last April, Debby (my partner at Beach Packaging Design) found a relatively fresh vial of blood on South Beach. (photo on right)

This more contempory bit of medical waste still had its label showing the source to have been Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.

As suggested by its name, “Franklin Lakes” has lakes and is not adjacent to an ocean. This blood vial, therefore, did not float all the way to Lower New York Bay from one of Franklin Lake’s lakes. Not without some illegal human intervention.

But I digress. Here’s what my 20cc Luer-Lok syringe probably looked like when it was still intact…

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 13, 2011

Uncapped Landfill Jar #4

Musterole: Before & After. Not the usual “before & after” package redesign photos. The photo on left (by Rick Schies) and my photo (on the right) shows what the small white jar looked like “before”—migrating from its uncapped landfill to Dead Horse Bay Beach—and “after.”

Early advertising below shows that this jar originally came in a box.

Another Musterole ad from 1913 touted the clean whiteness of the jar:

“You get this clean, white ointment out of a clean, white jar. You simply rub it on—and the pain is gone!”

Smearing Mustard on the Skin, by Roger M. Grace
2005, Metroplitan News Company

(One more early Musterole ad, after the fold…)

(more…)

May 3, 2011

Laxakola

On left: Laxakola packaging from Harvest of History; on right: photo from Mr. History’s Flickr Photostream

I usually post something here regularly, Monday through Friday, but yesterday I couldn’t quite manage it… I knew that I wanted to feature the “Laxakola” bottle above, but I was stuck on the idea of comparing or contrasting it with Coca-Cola, and it just wasn’t happening.

Then I found this story by turn-of-the-century adman, Charles Austin Bates, and thought it was way more interesting…

Story of a Patent Medicine That Was Introduced by an Advertising Expert.

I am invited to tell the story of Laxakola.

It is a sad tale.

It was in 1899 that I listened to the siren song of Samuel M. Crombie, and was lured into an effort to establish a patent medicine business.

Before that I had known that Dr. Pierce had an assortment of steam yachts, house boats, and other things that seemed to me desirable, and that Dr. Shoop owned the finest dogs and guns in the State of Wisconsin, and had sufficient leisure to enjoy them.

I knew all about how Dr. J. C. Ayer had made his millions in sarsaparilla, and how the inventor of California Fig Syrup was living on Nob Hill in San Francisco.

The patent medicine business certainly does look beautiful—from the outside.

Mr. Crombie had invented Laxakola, and had induced quite a number of people in Ypsilanti to use it. I tested it out on various unsuspecting friends, and it seemed all right.

There didn’t seem to be any reason why I should insist on keeping the good thing all to myself, so a prospectus was sent out, inviting subscriptions to the stock of the company. The capitalization was modest—only three million dollars.

The circular was headed: “A Rare Chance for a Gamble,” and in it was set forth the stories I had accumulated, which told of the fabulous wealth of all the patent medicine men and the ease with which it had been acquired.

Incidentally, subscriptions to the stock of the Laxakola Company were invited from people who were prepared to lose without weeping and wailing, and it was distinctly stated that we did not want money from any one who, if he lost his money, would wear sackcloth and ashes the balance of his life.

Pretty quickly, we had subscriptions for sixty or seventy thousand dollars, and, in addition to this, the company had on hand quite a large amount of space in newspapers over the country, this space having been accumulated in the course of my business as an advertising agent and publisher. That looked like a pretty good start, especially as we had in Mr. Crombie a man who had had long experience in the drug business, both as a retailer and as a salesman on the road for jobbing and manufacturing druggists.

Nevertheless, it seemed to me that we needed all the wisdom we could get. and, on the recommendation of John Adams Thayer and William C. Freeman, of the Journal, diplomatic negotiations were entered into with Joseph Hamlin Phinney, Jr., the then manager of the Cuticura business.

Mr. Phinney came over and talked to us, and his conversation sounded so good and positive that we were sure we could not get along without him.

We showed Mr. Phinney our bank book, and he said that if our stuff was any good, he couldn’t see any use for all that money—that five thousand dollars ought to be plenty. Also, he told us the story of the start of the Cuticura business, when Mr. Geo. R. White put some large vigorous ads in the Boston Sunday Globe, and on Monday morning had to call out the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, of Boston, to quell the riot of those seeking Cuticura at the doors of the Weeks & Potter Co.

When it came to terms, Mr. Phinney said all he wanted was a nice square chunk of money at the end of each month, and a larger oblong bundle of stock at the end of the year if he sold either fifty thousand or one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Laxakola—I don’t remember which was the sum, but that is immaterial, because the entire sales from that time to this day have not equaled either of them.

With all of our immense advertising ability, combined with the medicine knowledge of Mr. Crombie and Mr. Phinney, and with about forty thousand dollars of real money in the Chemical Bank, it looked as if we were ready to go ahead. So we turned the crank a few times and started off at the third speed.

Crombie was sure that our only salvation lay in co-operating with the Proprietary Medicine Association, the Retail Druggists’ Association and the Jobbers’ Association.

Phinney, having gone through several fights with these aggregations, knew of a very definite and very warm locality to which he was not only willing, but anxious, to consign them.

The result was that we tried out Laxakola in the West on the Crombie plan, and in Boston and New England on the Phinney plan.

Phinney’s idea was to put the ads in the papers and let the druggists “go to blazes.” He knew that if we sent in enough calls for the stuff, the druggists would have to buy.

Crombie’s idea was to canvass the druggist, sell him as much Laxakola as he would consent to buy, and then advertise to help him get rid of it.

I believe they are both good systems, but neither one of them created any excitement at the Laxakola office.

We did manage to place a few gross, but after a few months we found that we were not getting any re-orders. Instead, we were getting some complaints intermixed among the testimonials.

Various experiments seemed to demonstrate that when Laxakola was fresh out of the barrel it was all right, but, after a few months of close communion in the bottle, some of the other ingredients so acted on the senna, as to render it wholly ineffectual and thus eliminated the “early-rising” feature so essential in such preparations.

By the time we had this trouble located and corrected, and had exchanged new Laxakola for old, we had managed to get rid of a very large part of our cash.

We had proven to our own dissatisfaction that, in our case at least, Mr. Phinney’s plan wouldn’t work, so we employed some salesmen to go into the smaller towns, sell Laxakola to the druggist, make an advertising contract with the newspaper, and arrange for a distribution of booklets.

There were some weeks in which tht salesmen’s gross sales amounted to almost as much as their salaries. That was encouraging, but not profitable. However, we seemed to gain a little ground all the while, so that by the end of the third or fourth year, it looked as if there might be a week sometimes in which we would pay expenses—if we regarded the advertising expenditure as an investment and not as an expense.

We never did quite reach that delectable time, and it was continuously necessary to get more money to go ahead with.

At this point there came to the front a gentleman with a true sporting spirit—Mr. Hamilton Carhartt, of Detroit, who, when he is not touring the Continent in his de Luxe devil-wagon, is engaged in manufacturing clothing which only Union men are permitted to wear.

Mr. Carhartt originally came into the gamble with five thousand dollars. Later on. he added five thousand dollars more, and still later agreed to pay in two hundred dollars a week up to ten thousand dollars additional.

After paying this for a number of weeks, a slight frost set in in the region of his pedal extremities, and he expressed unwillingness to go ahead with the proposition unless some of the other four or five hundred stockholders would also chip in. None of them exhibited any wild desire to do so.

(The rest of the story & a Laxakola testimonial ad, after the fold…)

(more…)

December 7, 2010

One Year (in the life of George Maciunas)

Top left photo from l_c_m_tt_’s Flickr Photostream

At MOMA until May 9, 2011: George Maciunas’s “One Year”

ONE YEAR (1973-1974) is a art installation by Lithuania-born American artist George Maciunas (1931-1978) consisting of the empty containers of various food and household products that he consumed over the course of one year. The work reflects the American consumer landscape of the early 1970s and the monotony of Maciunas’ daily regimen.

(via: NYC ♥ NYC)

(If you click on the top left photo and look closely, you will note that, in addition to food, Maciunas consumed a lot of asthma medications. This helps to explain what follows, after the fold….)

(more…)

November 1, 2010

Blood Bag Packaging

Oh yeah. Halloween. I guess that was yesterday. Oh well: a penny late and a pint short.

Among the packaging meant to resemble blood bags, Halloween candy figures most prominently—but other products (that are not specifically Halloween-related) will also occasionally embrace this gimmick…

…like heat packs and ice packs (blood bags that come in boxes)…

…or “Blood Bath” brand shower gel.

(More photos and examples, after the fold…)

(more…)

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