Box Vox

packaging as content

August 31, 2011

Canned Vegetable Garden

CannedVegetableGarden

I’ve seen canned plants before, but I thought these were intersting since the labels show photos of the produce, rather than the plant. Which makes the packaging look a lot like canned food.

(via: Noted at Gift Fair)

Microgiardini_kitchengarden

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

August 30, 2011

Real & Imaginary PANTONE Package Design

PantonePacks

Hangers_1

PantoneBlock2Seeing Room Copenhagen’s new “Pantone Universe” products at Gift Fair (like the multicolored, Mobius-strip shaped hangers above, left) set me to thinking about all the various and sundry packaged Pantone products—real and imagined. (Poster illustration on right is by Base Design)

Although many graphic designers seem to identify with this brand, it always seemed to me that the market for multicolored PANTONE accessories ought to be a pretty small niche. There would undoubtedly be brand loyalists who would happily eat, sleep & breath the PANTONE logo, but those consumers should be far fewer in numbers, than, say, consumers willing to wear a Coca Cola logo.

Pantone is ubiquitous in graphics departments around the world, the metric by which designers define just the right shade of blue for the Gap's logo (Pantone 655) and the perfect pink for Barbie's (Pantone 820). Pantone chips likewise help Kellogg's enhance a cereal box to stand out on the shelf by using "spot" colors more vibrant than the mixes that emerge from the standard four-color printing press.

Allison Fass, “The Color of Money”
Forbes, 2003

Still, despite a certain backlash tendency, there seems to be no shortage of licensing deals and creative energy expended in this direction.

Personally, I find the PANTONE color system a bit kludgy and cumbersome.

Their solid color matching system requires that printers have a set of 14 different PANTONE approved base color inks, in order to correctly mix all of the admixture hues and tones. To me, this is like some inelegant logarithmic table, compared to the simple and logical algebra of CMYK— with 4 process colors.

For certain colors, however, specially mixed solid color inks will be much brighter than CMYK combinations. Correctly specifying those “spot” colors has become increasingly important for retail consumer packaging and for that PANTONE has no competition.

Real and imaginary PANTONE products are generally much more effective when displayed in a multicolored group. (See: Rainbow Array Packaging)  Although PANTONE cannot trademark the idea of a color assortment, in the minds of many designers, color = PANTONE.

Graphically, these package designs are usually minimal, based as they are on the layout of a tiny color chip swatch with PANTONE’s Helvetica logo and identifying code number.

(1,114 examples, 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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August 26, 2011

“God Save The Tea”
Jamie Reid and Specificity in Punk Package Design

SexPistolsPackaging

Make International’s “Punk Range” china (designed by Keith Brymer Jones) comes in a carton that references two different Sex Pistols record sleeves, originally designd by Jamie Reid.

Reid’s ransom-note collage technique came to typify “punk” style in the 1970s, but it’s surprising how many packaged products there are today that reference these two specific designs: 1. the “God Save the Queen” single sleeve (& poster) and 2. the LP cover for “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.”

JamieReid

As an American, I had the orange version of Never Mind the Bollocks, and I loved the intensity of the fluorescent orange, but I recognize that the earlier British release has more in the way of provenance. (See also: Talking Heads 77 fluorescent orange packaging)

(More, after the fold…)

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August 25, 2011

Foundry

Foundry-palmarosa
Also found at Gift Fair: Packaging for Tatine Candles “Foundry” line. The industrial vibe of these chipboard boxes caught our attention. The company’s founder explains Foundry’s package design this way:

“FOUNDRY Materialized from my love of industrial warehouses, design, and objet’, vintage motorcycles and the men who ride them, and of course, Rock n’ Roll. I admire history and craftsmanship in old buildings + things, how they were made and how they work. The collection reflects heavyweight found objects, completely handmade and re purposed in recycled glassware with vintage motorcycle racing numbers. The thick recycled chipboard box includes a copper grommet and leather pull…

The concept was in my head and designed and collaborated with perfection by the darling Becki, my beloved designer.”

Margo Breznik, Top Notes (The Tatine Candles Blog)

“Becki” referred to above, must be Rebecca Snyder of A La Mode Designs—(the same firm that designed and developed the Tatine Candle website.)

Box-on-Press “On press” on left; “die” for die-cutting the boxes, on right

We weren’t the only ones who admired Foundry’s package design. It won “Best in Show” for NYIGF’s 2011 Extracts category.

(One more photo, after the fold…)

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August 24, 2011

Package Design on Your iPhone

VerticalPhoneCasePacks
HorizontalPhoneCasePacks 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)…

Behar

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.

JuiceBoxiPhone

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 23, 2011

New Package Design for Warm Whiskers Eye Pillow

SingleCardAnother booth that we visited at Gift Fair last week was DreamTime, Inc. The new packaging for their line of Warm Whiskers eye pillows caught my eye, because of the way the product conceals the eyes of its face-shaped die cut cards.

I’m always on the lookout for packaging that functions as an anthropomorphic proxy—either for the seller or, in this case, for the consumer. It’s a wonderfully direct way of showing the product’s purpose—showing the eye pillow in use on a person’s face—but oddly attention-getting precisely because the person’s eyes are hidden.

Personally, I felt compelled to lift the mask up and peak underneath—just to confirm that there were actually eyes printed there! That kind of interaction with the product and its packaging can’t be a bad thing. (And I have, in the past, ruminated about why a retail package should never stare the consumer down.)

Previously this product was packaged in a fancy, but generic organdy bag.

WarmWhiskers-Before

The new cards come with an easel back for counter display and a hang hole to make them peggable. I’m not too crazy about the wishy-washy brand logo, but (to my eye) the packaging concept, the girly illustrations and the cute products more than make up for it.

WarmWhiskers-After

I don’t have photos of them, but I also recall seeing anthropomorphic die cut displays for stuffed animal “neck wraps” at their booth…

(More about the “neck wraps” after the fold…)

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August 22, 2011

Geografia’s Polyhedral Planet

MagicCubeGlobe

Twist02We went to Gift Fair last week (NYIGF) and one of the booths where I lingered the longest belonged to Geografia, a company that makes polyhedral paper globe kits, among other things.

When I saw the cube-shaped globe, above left, I said, “I bet that‘s a magic cube.” Sure enough the “Earth & Sky Twistable Globe” was a fully-functioning, folding and unfolding “magic cube” made from 8 smaller cubes—(the same sort of cube as our own Gumball Cube Pack).

In one state, the “Twistable Globe” shows a map of the world. Turned inside-out, it shows a map of the stars. (Really like the inside-outside / introvert-extrovert idea of this.)

Globe_flip_2

FlipUnfolded Another intriguing reversible globe was their “Lands & Nations Flippable Globe” which was very similar to Jessica Comin’s “laranja mecánica” that we looked at recently. In her case, the cube could be turned inside-out to form a rhombic dodecahedron. The “Flippable Globe” is a cube that can be turned inside-out to form a regular dodecahedron. And its parts are tabbed, rather than permanently hinged together.

Flip00

The projection of maps onto polyhedral shapes is something that Buckminster Fuller and others have also explored, but Geografia’s products manage to provide fascinating new polyhedral perspectives and (geo)graphic insights.

Here’s a video showing one of their “Sectional Globes” being assembled…

(We’ll be featuring more stuff from Gift Fair over the next week or two.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

October 20, 2009

Buckyballs Packaging: Before & After

BuckyBallsBeforeAfter

Maybe you’ve seen the YouTube videos of someone’s expert hands, artfully wrangling these magnetic ball bearings into different polyhedral arrangements. A fun crystal-structure teaching opportunity (and cool that it references Buckminster Fuller and fullerenes, AKA: buckyballs)

Zoomdoggle recently switched their packaging from a glass jar to a PVC box. (I met owner, Craig Zucker last August at Gift Fair and learned that the design of the new pack was handled in-house.)

(A Buckyballs display, after the fold…)

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August 26, 2009

Too Late’s Wristwatch in a Jar

Too2Late

This is not the photo I wanted. At Gift Fair, what I saw at Too Late’s booth were rows and rows of jars, each containing a single brightly colored rubber watch. The only packaging photos I could find online were ones like these, where, naturally, the intention was to feature the product rather than the packaging. (I guess I should have just brought my camera.)

But you get the idea: a product that borrows its packaging from another product category. (Like jeans packaged in paint cans and the like.)

Here is the company’s own rather breathless assessment from their web site:

What could be said about the packaging? Too Late watches are place in a sparkling, well-rounded and Eco-friendly glass jar. This innovative packaging, first in the world for a watch, has received a nomination at the 2009 Condè Nast Design & Innovation Awards in London.

I'll say this: the rows of jars containing multi-colored watches, made for a cool display.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

August 25, 2009

Esque Studio’s Bottles etc.

More-esque
Top: Another glassware gun—this one’s an object d'arte paper-weight, rather than a container, although it is probably made of glass from melted beer bottles; lower left: vases based on those bear-shaped honey containers; lower right: “JP’s Apothecary”—hand blown from recycled beer bottles. (Boxes are handmade from reclaimed wood and the backdrop is mirrored)

The altered green beer bottles (below) are what drew me to Esque Studio’s booth at Gift Fair. Glass-blowing duo, Justin Parker and Andi Kovel make high-concept, decorative glassware.

EsqueGreenBottles

I spoke briefly with Justin at their booth and learned that, although they still use “pure glass“ (for customers that prefer their glass: crystal-clear and bubble free), their re-melted, recycled glass work has become increasing popular—both for its appealing imperfections and its eco-cachét.

(Another variation on their re-purposed beer bottle theme, after the fold…)

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August 21, 2009

ZIPit Packaging

Zipit-Opener
Photos from a review of the ZIPit in The Gadgeteer

I saw another packaging-related product at Gift Fair: the ZIPit battery operated clamshell package opener.

Unlike some manufacturers in this product category, they wisely avoided the negative irony of packaging their product in clamshell, opting instead for a paperboard carton. Not a prize-winning graphic design effort. (Might also be mistaken for a Glad garbage bag box.) Still, it does communicate the “As seen on TV” vibe that this product embodies…

The thing is, this is not the only “Zip It” product on the market. As is often the case with trademarked names, there are a number of other “Zip It” retail packages to be found in other product categories…

(See more Zip It packaging, after the fold…)

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August 20, 2009

Ridley’s House of Novelties Packaging

Ridleys
I attended Gift Fair this past weekend. These extreme vintage boxes for Wild & Wolf’s “Ridley’s House of Novelties” got my attention. I think the illustrations really capture the dime-store/magic-shop gestalt of these products.

I was also impressed with how far they were willing to go with the faux-vintage background color of these boxes. Personally, I’m attracted to the time-worn look of old retail boxes that you find in thrift shops, but I wonder if some stores might be put off by packages that looks almost shop-worn even though they’re brand new. (Of course, pre-washed denim sold alright when that came out, so maybe it’s a non-issue.)

Also: check out the knockoff Doublemint—“Pure Mint”—joke gum pack on the “5 Classic Jokes” box.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

June 10, 2009

Candy Package Pillows

CandyPillows

Similar to the plush candy-pack dog toys that I wrote about last August, only for people. Scenario’s “Sweet Thang” soft goods division makes licensed, candy-pack pillows. (And also soda can pillows & cereal box pillows.)

(Photos from Candy Warehouse)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

February 7, 2009

Snack Pack Key Chains

SnackCompsite

From Monkey Design, available in Taiwan, but discontinued in the USA: snack pack key chains.

“Everyone has their favorite junk food. In Taiwan, they like to carry miniature reminders of their snacks on a keychain. (Also available on a lanyard for cell phone usage!)”

–Monkey Design USA

(Some close up photos after the fold…)

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September 16, 2008

Grow It

5boxesI like these tube-style carton sleeves for Gift Republic’s “Grow It” line. (I saw them last month at NYIGF.) The colorful, but economical packaging system for the so-called “garden-inspired starter kits” makes a good impact all together, on display.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

September 10, 2008

Tea Forté

5traydessertTea Forté from designer Peter Hewitt. A pleasing combination of geometric and organic: tall polyhedral infuser packs, each with a disarmingly natural-looking leaf/sprout tag. Although the tall pyramidal shape is not a “close packing” polyhedron, the individual tea-bag/infusers do pack together in a variety of sculpturally intriguing ways.

Ribbonexotics

(A couple more images, after the jump…)

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