box vox

Coffee Pot Packaging

One more set of salt & pepper shakers—this one from ArtStudioMgr’s Flickr Photostream. I really like its glowing coils. (Is it fluorescent paint?) I had decided not to include this image in the previous post because the shakers are little coffee pots, rather than little retail packages. But then I remembered that sometimes coffee pots can be retail packages! (See photo below of 1960s Sanka & Maxwell House Instant Coffee packaging from RoadsidePictures’ Flickr Photostream below.)

So now that we’ve established that coffee pots are, indeed, packaging... about these salt & pepper shakers...

I was just thinking, that to distinguish the salt from the pepper it would be nice if one of them had an orange handle. But which is more analogous to decaffeinated coffee: salt or pepper?

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Salt, Pepper & Packaging

Featured in Jerry Jankowski’s book, Shelf Space, this box for The Squirt Company’s 1955 advertising premium was intended ...

to promote its “exciting new kind of soft drink... with fresh fruit flavor you can see!” Side panel storyboards show where the fun, novelty shakers could be used ...

Namely: in the kitchen or at a barbecue or at a picnic. But probably not at your dining room table. At least not in 1955, quite yet. (See: Branding in Your Home)

The idea of miniature packages serving as salt and pepper shakers has a certain logic. Salt & pepper shakers are, after all, nothing more than containers. Why bother transferring the contents of one container into another?

Vintage mini salt & pepper shakers from mrybuckler’s Flickr Photostream

And needless to say, in encouraging consumers to go for that convenience, there was also a branding opportunity. And yet salt and pepper represent a duality that, the Squirt Company (and many others) chose to ignore. I know one can sometimes distinguish between opaque salt and pepper shakers by the number of holes in the top. But rather than having two identical mini-Coke-can-shakers on the table (see below) wouldn’t it have made more sense to have two differently branded shakers for salt and pepper? Say, regular Coke for salt and Diet Coke for pepper?

Top left: Can-shaped Coke shakers from iCollect247.com; top right: beer can shakers from mrybuckler’s Flickr Photostream; 2nd row left: another set of Squirt salt & pepper shakers in a different box from Ruby Lane; 2nd row, center: Kaiser Stuhl shakers from Squatters Antiques; 2nd row, right: 7-Up shakers from JazzeJunqueInc’s Flickr Photostream; bottom left: Pillsbury flour-bag-shaped shakers from JazzeJunqueInc’s Flickr Photostream; bottom center: Fort Pitt Beer shakers from Astrycula’s Flickr Photostream; bottom right: Corona Beer shakers from Sabenien's Flickr Photostream

(More curious salt & pepper packaging, after the fold...)

Faux-explosion Windows

Starburst Fruitfuls packs, designed for Mars by Australian design agency, Asprey Creative: more packaging with faux windows, along the same lines as ones mentioned at the end of our Die Cut Windows post from May. Here, however, the faux-window idea is combined with the wet-explosion concept, so that the packages appear to be hemorrhaging product—(but in a fun way!)

Maybe my idea for dissection-themed packaging windows is no so far-fetched, after all.

(via: Pop Sop)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Alicia Escott's Drawings on Plastic Packaging

Life-size drawing of ‘the’ California Brown Pelican on a Barney's New York garment bag (by Alicia Escott)

Alicia Escott makes drawings on plastic packaging. Her works—(often depicting endangered species or scenes of post-consumer waste)—are part commentary, partly deliberate effort to make art that, like packaging, seems ephemeral and (deceptively) impermanent.

Through these works I am physically recreating packaging while addressing the packaging of concepts such as nature and wilderness.

I am both interested in how the materials I use move through the consumer economy and how words and concepts like ‘sustainability’, ‘ecological’, ‘recyclable’ , wilderness and ‘nature’ are passed through the information economy.

The work challenges our perceptions of what is and is not permanent by being both precious and disposable.  Where local facilities exist, these drawings are often either recyclable or compostable and may be reincarnated into other consumer products such as polyester carpeting.

Alicia Escott

(More photos of Escott’s drawings on packaging, after the fold...)

Big Giant Cola

From ArtStudioMgr’s Flickr Photostream: Big Giant Cola anthro-pack sign. Although Big Giant Cola seems to be more associated with baseball—(baseball player on their bottle, and promotional, Styrofoam baseballs, etc.)—for a time they promoted themselves with a circus strong man bottle. (A couple of ads below.)

Two 1959 ads from Ecrater.com—on left for sale for 4.99: on right: for sale for $6.95

But it wasn’t all athletes and strong men with Big Giant Cola, they were also after the big giant brain demographic. What promotional swag did they come up with for that market?

(After the fold...)

Packaging Puzzles

From the legendary (now defunct) Synergistics Research Corporation: a series of packing/packaging puzzles. “Packing” puzzles because they pose a “packing problem”—

Packing problems are one area where mathematics meets puzzles (recreational mathematics). Many of these problems stem from real-life problems with packing items.

In a packing problem, you are given:

• one or more (usually two- or three-dimensional) containers
• several ‘goods’, some or all of which must be packed into this container

from Wikipedia’s entry on “Packing Problems”

—and “packaging” puzzles because they put this recreational mathematical game into a faux retail package. Below is Synergistics Research Corp’s 1983 patent for the cylindrical can-puzzle design.

 

(More packaging puzzles, after the fold...)

Cereal Stacking Boxes

Photos by Lenore M. Edman, www.evilmadscientist.com

These stacking boxes from EvilMadScientist.com reminded me of some earlier reused cereal boxes we’ve featured, in which the graphics also played a key role. (See: Unpackaged and Cereal Box Envelope)

A small group of hexagonal prism (close packing) stacking boxes made from a “Joe’s O’s” box (which is Trader Joe’s knock-off of Cheerios.) Other boxes used in the same Evil Mad Scientist article are also from Trader Joe’s—as well as that box that Laura Trimmell made her mailing envelope from... Which raises the demographic question: do crafters tend to shop more at Trader Joe’s?

(More photos and a quote, after the fold...)

Radioactive Gag Gift Packaging

The last chapter of Jerry Jankowski’s book, Shelf Space (modern package design, 1945-1960), is about “gag gifts.” These are usually conceptual affairs, in the sense that—(although the gag may be sort of dumb)—as a product, it’s little more than an idea contained in the package. One product featured in this “canned laughter” section of Jankowski’s book is a can of “Genuine Los Angeles Smog.” (See photos below)

From The Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum Collection, this can of “Original Canned Radiation” is obviously the same basic concept. Selling an empty can of air as a sort of rueful attempt at finding humor in the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident.

“Canned Radiation” from Three Mile Island produced  by Brenster Enterprises of Etters Pennsylvania.

This was probably the most popular souvenir associated with the accident at Three Mile Island.

The six suggested uses indicated on the label were:

1. Remove label and tell your enemy its laughing gas.
2. Energy free night light (illuminates in darkness).
3. Mix with cold cream for that radiant beauty.
4. Instant male sterilization (sniff twice daily).
5. Use as a room air freshener.
6. Toothpaste recipe: mix 3 to 1 ratio with basking soda, for ever glowing smile.

ORAU Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum Collection

The funny thing is, several of those bulleted points above are ideas that have actually been tried in the past for serious, non-gag products. (See: Radioactive Packaging)

Nice smog can from eBay, circa 1968 (“Buy It Now” price : $49.95)

(A different label design for “Genuine Los Angeles Smog,” after the fold...)

Viobots

Bob Linden, author of “The Classification of Violin Shaped Bottles” with some of his viobots (and also a few “banjobots”)

Another type of figural glass bottle: violin shaped bottles or “viobots.”

Photos above mostly from Viobot.tripod.com, except for the Bard’s Town Whisky bottle on the right, which is from Fantomaster’s Flickr Photostream; the lower right bottle contains maple syrup and a couple of the photos, I think, were from eBay

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Greenhead Fly Traps

Like everyone else around here, we’ve outfitted our greenhead fly trap (above) with re-purposed packaging

On the rare occasions that we go away for the weekend, the place we usually go is to the marshlands of south Jersey on the Delaware bay. Reed’s Beach is a nature preserve and a critical stopover for migratory birds en route to arctic breeding grounds. (See Nature.org)

Because it’s a nature preserve, it cannot be developed any further. The houses on stilts and the trailers that were already there can stay, but no new construction is permitted.

For bird watchers this place is some kind of Mecca, and for a few weeks in May while the horseshoe crabs are spawning and the red knots & ruddy turnstones are feeding—(although not so much now as in the past)—the beach is closed to humans.

One regrettable feature of life in Reed’s Beach and similar wetlands communities, are the greenhead flies.

Adult flies mate on the open marsh. Within a few days and without seeking a blood meal, the female lays her first egg mass, consisting of 100 to 200 eggs. To produce additional egg masses, the female needs a blood meal...

Adult female greenheads move from the salt marsh to nearby wooded or open areas along the marsh edge to seek suitable blood sources. There they await and attack wildlife, livestock, and people that venture close enough for them to detect.

Females live for three to four weeks in the uplands before they become too weak to bite. Because of this long life, larger numbers of blood hungry flies build up in areas near salt marshes. The physical removal of large numbers of flies can reduce this buildup and thus decrease the greenhead fly problem locally.

The Greenhead and You
Elton Hansens and Stuart Race, Rutgers University

It was Elton Hansens and Stuart Race (quoted above) who designed the greenhead fly trap that we use. The original plans (below) call for a dark black box, open at the bottom with screen at the top into which a couple of hole with cone shapes guide the flies to the top —(they naturally tend to fly upwards towards-the-light)—where they are invariably imprisoned in packaging.

The original instructions mentions using “transparent shoe boxes” but as a DIY necessity, individuals here will use will just use whatever packaging is at hand: bottles, jars, takeout food containers, etc. One innovation that everyone seems to be onboard with: the neck of a PVC bottle makes a good cone and is easier than fashioning a cone from screening, as the original design stipulated.

(See some more examples, after the fold...)

Art.Lebedev Studio's Lemon Slices

I’ve been noticing what I think may be a mini-trend of packages that illustrate their product contents with repeating patterns. When I have more time, I may compile a larger selection of examples to make my case. In the meantime, I think this canister for jelly candies by Moscow-based Art.Lebedev Studio makes an awfully good Exhibit A.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging design

Gun-Shaped Bottles

Gun-shaped Hijos de Villa Tequila bottle: the lower photo (above) is from Eddie Quinones’s Flickr Photostream

The gun-shaped Hijos de Villa Tequila bottle was getting a lot of attention online last year. Old news from Johnny-come-lately, Box Vox, right? I know, but looking into it now, I’m a little surprised at how many other gun-shaped, glass bottles there are to be found. Some of which are even older.

These two gun-shaped candy bottles are from Ruby Lane. (Vintage packaging from the days when kids were encouraged to play with guns.)

Although I’ve touched on the topic of bottles as a weapon—(think: barroom brawl)—I hadn’t considered “weapons” to be one of the fundamental packaging metaphors. (See: Packaging as Metaphor) I don’t know, maybe I missed something...  “In the battle of the brands, packaging is a weapon.” or “The package is a not-so-secret, deadly weapon with which to annihilate the competition.” (Or something like that.)

Pistola Bucanero "Mocambo" 1821—a buccaneer-pistol-shaped rum bottle (Note: gun-shaped bottles are one of those packages that, themselves, require packaging.)

(More gun-shaped bottles, after the jump...)

Matt King's Carnival Straw Cart Corrals

“Turbo” Matt King, 1999—Flexible straws, hot glue, packaging

I had just been reading about Sylvan Goldman’s invention of the shopping cart in Thomas Hine’s book, so shopping carts—(and how they are stored)—was already on my mind when followed a link to sculptor, Matt King’s web site.

Cart corrals—those ubiquitous steel structures peppered throughout the parking lots of America’s malls and supermarkets—are some of my favorite “found” sculptures. As objects that evoke both a whiff of the Wild West and the gluttony of contemporary consumerism, their presence always makes me chuckle. In 1999 I made 50 cart corral designs out of bendy straws and hot glue. They are as goofy as the original only smaller.

Matt King

A lot of his other work also uses products & their packaging as raw materials. (See: Blister Pack, SPF30, & Mergers)  A few of the sculptures from his SPF30 series even include folding chairs—the conceptual inspiration for Sylvan Goldman’s shopping cart invention.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Another baby found in a Timberland shoe box

Baby shoe box photos from KidsDesignerWear-UK. (This is not the box in which the baby girl was found in Hempstead, and is only shown here for illustration purposes & for flat-footed irony.)

Yep. This is the second time I’m quoting a Daily News story about a baby in a Timberland box. (The earlier story was from September of 2007. See: Packaging and Moral Turpitude.) 

The girl was less than a day old when she was discovered by a man who heard a noise and peeked inside a Timberland work boots box around 9 p.m. Sunday in Hempstead, L.I.

Baby, less than a day old, found in shoebox in lobby of Long Island apartment building
The NY Daily News, 6/22/09

And from the NY Post:

A newborn baby girl was found alive in a Timberland shoebox in the entrance to a Long Island apartment building, police said today...

A breathing hole had been cut in the middle of the lid.

NEWBORN ABANDONED IN LI BUILDING
The NY Post, 6/22/09

Poor Timberland. Some news reports just say “shoe box,” but most of the reportage makes a point of including this key, brand-name detail. Is this just to give the story verisimilitude?  Or is it a commentary on the mother’s values? As if to say: “Look, she can afford to buy expensive Timberland boots, but she can’t afford to take care of her child.”

Radioactive Packaging

From the Standard Chemical Company Photo Album (ca. 1915-1920)—no caption but I’m guessing that what we’re looking at are lead-lined tubes for containing a “radioactive source,” an elegant leather snap case and a wrapped shipping parcel (with twine & sealing wax for security).

After Marie Curie’s discoveries in the late 1800’s and well into the early 1900’s—before the dangers of radiation were well understood—radium, radon, uranium (and radiation in general) were considered modern and high-tech. Plenty of products that were not even radioactive capitalized on the glamor of radioactivity by incorporated “radium” and “uranium” etc. into their brand names. (Radium Brand Butter, Radium Brand Cigars, Radium Cigarettes, Radium Condoms, Radium Beer, X-Ray Soap, Uranium Ice Cream, and more recently: Radioactive Energy Drink.) 

But radioactivity was also touted as a a miracle cure and innumerable products were manufactured with radioactive ingredients and long patent-medicine-style lists of claimed health benefits.

From The Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum Collection—top left: radium water (jar itself is not measurably radioactive, some sort of emanation device (e.g., a radioactive disk) would have been kept inside); to the right: Hungarian Radiumvizes Bread (radium water ... was used in the production of the bread ... As such, the bread would have contained slightly elevated levels of radium, but nothing that could be considered dangerous); below: “Radioaktive“ Toothpaste from WWII Germany. According to the tube, “Its radioactive radiation increases the defenses of teeth and gums”; second row: two radioactive mens health products—left: Vita-Radium Suppositories (“These suppositories were guaranteed to contain real radium—and probably did”); right: The Radiendocrinator (Product directions: Male—Place Radiendocrinator in the pocket of this adaptor... Wear adaptor like any  “athletic strap”... This puts the instrument under the scrotum as it should be. wear at night. Radiate as directed.); third row left: Arium Radium Tablets (For rheumatism. neuritis, neuralgia, gout, etc. Directions: “Take two tablets with glass of water before or after each meal. To derive the most beneficial effects, ARIUM should be taken regularly as directed.”); on right: radium bromide bottles (“These homeopathic triturations containing radium bromide powder were distributed from a pharmacy in Pennsylvania in the 1960s”); bottom left: Radithor “Eben Byers was the  founder of the A.M. Byers Company, one of the world's largest steel companies...  At the recommendation of his doctor, he began drinking Radithor... he averaged three bottles a day for two years.  Byers stopped consuming Radithor in 1930 when his teeth started falling out and holes appeared in his skull. Perhaps more than anything else, his death in 1932 alerted the public, and much of the medical profession, of the harmful effects of "mild" radium therapy.” (1932 WSJ headline: The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off); on right: a Wards Radium Ore Heating Pad.

Like Eben Beyers, mentioned in the caption above, Marie Curie, herself, was an unwitting victim of radiation exposure.

Her death on July 4, 1934, at the Sancellemoz Sanatorium in Passy, in Haute-Savoie, eastern France, was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly contracted from exposure to radiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were then not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed without any safety measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave off in the dark.

from the Wikipedia Entry on Marie Curie

By the 1950s & 1960s, while the public stilled viewed radiation as something modern and futuristic, this view was now tinged with the threat of atomic war and nuclear fallout. Retail kits for detecting radiation ran the gamut from uranium prospecting, to bomb-shelter fallout-detection to educational science kits. The idea of radioactivity as a panacea and cure-all had largely fallen out of favor—(although the radium bromide above is from the 1960s!)

(Photos of radiation testing kits, after the fold...)

Tin Cans & Charivari

Via Lovely Package: Athens-based graphic designer, Chris Trivizas’s tin can wedding invitation

Another way in which packaging has infiltrated the culture: the “charivari” tradition of “good-natured hazing” of newly-weds has evolved into the current tradition of tying tin cans to the rear bumper of the newlyweds’ car.

How long has this tin-can-thing been a tradition? Before there were cars, tin cans were tied to horse-drawn wagons, but it cannot have been the tradition before metal cans were invented the early 1800s. (See Can-Opener Patents)

(More about tin cans & newlyweds, after the fold...)

Newspaper = New Paper

Winner of an Art Directors Club award: Dentsu’s concept of printing patterns over used newspaper to make a decorative wrapping for vendors. (Similar to the Unpackaged store’s postcards printed over cereal boxes.)

(via: Osocio.org)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design