box vox

Roly Poly Tindeco Tobacco Tins

Photos via: Dan Morphy Auctions

In last month’s post about roly poly Santa and clown containers, there was one photo of a Santa-shaped tobacco tin. “Tindeco” was the company that originally came out with this type of anthropomorphic package design:

Around 1912 the Tin Decorating Company, aka Tindeco, produced round colorful tins to hold tobacco for the American Tobacco Company. American Tobacco controlled Tindeco, as well as the four brands of tobacco sold in these tins. Each container held about 1 lb of tobacco with the brand names Dixie Queen, Mayo, Red Indian and U.S. Marine. Apparently the company suggested that the tins be used as brownie containers after the tobacco was used and designed them accordingly.

The six original tins were Satisfied Customer (reproduction called Businessman), Storekeeper, Singing Waiter (reproduction called Singer), Mammy, Dutchman (reproduction called Cowboy), and Scotland Yard. According to "The Tin Can Book", the Satisfied Customer, Dutchman and Scotland Yard are the hardest to find. But for those collectors that want complete sets, six tins would not do it! A complete set would be eighteen tins. Mayo and Dixie Queen tobacco was packaged in all six designs and while Red Indian and U.S. Marine were only packaged in three different tins. One way these tins were identified was by little packages of tobacco shown on some of the packages. E.g., Mammy had a tiny tin in her front pocket.

Barbara Crews, Roly Poly Tobacco Tins, 2002

Not exactly the Droste-effect, but when anthropomorphic packages are shown handling packages that contain the same product that they, themselves, contain, the effect is similar. Even when these characters are not shown with packaging in their pockets, they all have tobacco packages behind their backs. (back packs)

On left: a close up of cross-promotional behind-the-back package illustration; on left a vintage Mayo’s Tobacco pack of the type depicted

Below the “Scotland Yard” character with “Dixie Queen” tobacco behind his back. (Lower right corner shows the vintage tobacco pack depicted.)

The “Singing Waiter” character also promoted “Dixie Queen” in an alternate package.

On left: drawing from Washington I. Tuttle’s package design patent; on right: Charles Weise’s patented “shopkeeper” design (both patents assigned to American Tobacco Company)

(The “Mammy” character and the roly poly tobacco tin design patents after the fold...)

George Washington Carver and Pickaninny Brand Peanuts

Another example of Pickaninny branding. This one happens to have a “Droste effect” trademark, in that the girl’s caricature also appears on the tiny version of the can that she is holding.

Below is a letter from George Washington Carver to F.M Hoyt & Company gently objecting to this trademark:

November 29, 1929

Dear Sir:

I beg to acknowledge receipt of your interesting favor of recent date. . .

I believe your idea is a good one and with the advertisement you have in mind, I do not see why the venture should not become popular. I trust that you will, however, understand me and pardon me for making these suggestions.

It is solely in the interest of the peanut industry. I notice your trademark is “Pickaninny” peanuts, and that you are going to have a particularly appealing “Pickaninny” face.

I take it for granted that you are putting up these peanuts with the hope that everyone will buy them and that your trademark will become very popular. Now, my people object seriously to their children being called “Pickaninnies” as the usual Negro child. “Pickaninnies” as they are called by some, are merely caricatures.... I presume that you are acquainted with the unpopularity of the “Pickaninny” pie which was made after the manner of the Eskimo pie, but the caricature of its trade-mark made it very unpopular, so much so, that I understand that the originator had to give up the business. Of course, the “Gold Dust Twins” washing powder, and the “Cream of Wheat”, both colored advertisements, are very popular.

Now, as I stated before, I trust that you will understand me in what I mean and in using these trade-marks, do not have it an ugly cartoon...

I shall be glad to co-operate with you in any way I can, with sincerely good wishes, I am

Very truly yours,
G.W. Carver

George Washington Carver: In His Own Words
edited by Gary R. Kremer

Unlike Cream of Wheat, of course, “Pickaninny Brand” peanuts and peanut butter did not survive. F.M. Hoyt’s company is among the “forgotten industries” of Amesbury, Massachusetts.

(See also: Jim Crow Museum)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Corks as Containers

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

Popeye Spinach & The Droste Effect Tattoo

Photo above left is from Central Historian’s Flickr Photostream; photo above right is from Andrew John Gleason’s Flickr Photostream. (See Also: Roadside Packaging)

Thinking about packaging and tattoos, reminded me of Popeye for some reason. Popeye has tattoos of anchors on his arms. Some people have tattoos of Popeye on their arms. But if Popeye had a tattoo of himself on his arm...

Photo above right from: Dinosaur Comics

(See: also Droste Effect Packaging)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Don Draper’s Daughter on Droste Effect Packaging

An unexpected frisson of identification for me on Mad Men last week, when Don Draper’s daughter, Sally said:

“When I think about forever I get upset. Like the Land of Lakes butter has that Indian girl, sitting holding a box, and it has a picture of her on it, holding a box, with a picture of her on it, holding a box. Have you ever noticed that?”

Indeed, we have noticed that Land O’Lakes box and a growing collection of other “Droste Effect” packages, as well. (See: our entire Droste Effect category)

Nice to think that the idea of packaging-infinity has now been forever embedded into mainstream culture, but I get upset when I cannot find an embed-able video clip of the scene to include here. Happily, you can watch it on Jezebel.com

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Droste Effect Kids’ Food Packaging

In 2008, when I was first attempting to catalog examples of “Droste effect” packages—(packages that featured pictures of themselves)—I could only find 3 in my grocery store: Land O’Lakes Butter, Morton Salt and Cracker Jacks. Since then, I’ve occasionally found other examples which I’ve posted here. Sometimes they’ve been there all along and I just never noticed the pack within a pack.

All three of the examples I’m showing today are in Steve Roden and Dan Goodsell’s book, Krazy Kids’ Food! and it was only while looking through it for the fifth time that the scales fell off my eyes and I thought, “that banana on the box is pouring cereal from a box—also with a banana on it who is also pouring cereal from the same kind of box!” 

 

Photo on left: from Gregg Koenig's Flickr Photostream; photo on right: a detail from Krazy Kids’ Food!

Likewise, the family scene on the “Blue Bell Bar-B-Q Potato Chips” bag includes an easy detail to miss: the little girl is holding a bag of “Blue Bell Bar-B-Q Potato Chips.”

(The third example, after the fold...)

Liquid Smoke Label with Droste Effect

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...)

Packaging Barcodes

From Yael & Reuben Miller’s new Vanity Barcodes™ site—we like these simple, haiku-like illustrations that allow a barcode to communicate on additional levels. (via: the dieline)

In a sense, all barcodes* are “packaging barcodes.” It would be tough to find a consumer package that did not have a UPC. The four examples above, however, are also “packaging barcodes” in the sense that each one illustrates the type of the package that it would likely appear on. (Which raises the specter of a Droste effect vanity barcode!)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

*Footnoted digression: “UPC” or “Barcode” ? I tend to call these UPCs, but I’m glad, in a way, that they went with “barcodes.” Why? Because with “UPC” (as with “IRA”) we tend to forget what it is that the initials stand for. As a result, people will say redundant stuff like ”UPC code” (Universal Price Code code)—or “IRA account” (Individual Retirement Account account). Not that Yael & Reuben would ever do that, but—you know—people who blog about it might.

where there’s life...

A few things about this album cover:

1. It’s a “droste effect” package. Pictured within the scene on this album cover—(as with the old Droste brand cocoa box)—is the album cover, itself. (Only one iteration for some reason.)

2. It’s another example of Budweiser’s audiophile marketing. (See: Bud Light Speaker Box.) Having sponsored this 1960 Russ David recording, they featured their beverage packaging (a bottle) on the album cover.

3. Its title track is a jazzy version of their 1950s jingle, “Where There’s Life, There’s Bud.”

(MP3 via: Schadenfreudian Therapy) The other songs on the LP all have the word “life” in their title, (predating a similarly linguistic concept album, “i” by Magnetic Fields, in which every song begins with the letter, i).

(Additional ephemeral evidence, after the fold...)

Klein Bottles

Nested Klein bottles: a bottle containing a bottle containing a bottle... 

This is one of a series of glass Klein bottles made by Alan Bennett in 1995 for the Science Museum, London. It consists of three Klein bottles, one inside another. A Klein bottle is a surface which has no edges, no outside or inside and cannot properly be constructed in three dimensions. In the series Alan Bennett made Klein bottles analogous to Mobius strips with odd numbers of twists greater than one.

from The Science Museum in South Kensington

As I dimly understand the Klein bottle, it’s a sort of 3-dimensional diagram of a 4-dimensional object. In the 4th dimension the bottle would not need to intersect itself. Does the Klein bottle have any practical application in beverage packaging?


Futurama clip via Cocina y Matemáticas

(More Klein bottles by Alan Bennett, after the manifold...)

Don Pepino and the Droste Effect

I’ve seen this strange, colorful Don Pepino can any number of times and never really gave it much thought. While shopping last week for pizza-making ingredients, I suddenly saw it with new eyes. What’s that the little chef-mascot on the can is holding in his hand? A little Don Pepino can? (Duh!—and I’d thought I had already fully cataloged all of the “Droste effect” packages that our local supermarket carries.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Mr. Pritt

Top left: Pritt Stick assembly line, circa 1969; top right: earliest Pritt Stick packaging; below that: labeling design changes from 1969–2000; lower left: Mr. Pritt as costumed package mascot; lower right: Russian Cosmonaut Yury Usachev, weightless with Pritt Stick in 2001

Mr. Pritt is the anthropomorphic package mascot for Pritt, an adhesive brand owned by German-based Henkel International. Henkel invented the world’s first glue stick using a lipstick-style applicator in 1969.

I was not the familiar with the Pritt brand, but their history touches on a number of pet boxvox topics:

1. They use an anthropomorphic package as their brand mascot.

2. Sometimes “Mr. Pritt” makes personal appearances as an actor in trade-dress costume

3. Pritt products went to outer space in a Soyuz rocket with Russian Cosmonauts 

March 2001 literally launched Pritt as a “Universe-wide” brand! On March 17, 2001 at precisely 09:23, a Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan carrying a cargo of Pritt products bound for the International Space Station (ISS). On board, Russian Cosmonaut Yury Usachev, Commander of the ISS, personally tested the Pritt products. Both Pritt Stick and Pritt Rollers (Glue and Correction) were tested upon rigorous daily use under zero-gravity and other extreme conditions of space and officially awarded the exclusive seal of “Space Proof Quality”.

–Pritt Web Site

(More about Mr. Pritt, after the fold...)

Smile Brand

Another Droste Effect pack—(this one from the Duke University Library “Emergence of Advertising in America” digital collection)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Droste Effect Packaging

At my grocery store I could only find three examples: Land O’Lakes Butter, Morton Salt and Cracker Jacks. These packages each include a picture of the package itself and are often cited by writers discussing such pop-math-arcana as recursion, strange loops, self-similarity, and fractals.

This particular phenomenon, known as the “Droste effect,” is named after a 1904 package of Droste brand cocoa. The mathematical interest in these packaging illustrations is their implied infinity. If the resolution of the printing process—(and the determination and eyesight of the illustrator)—were not limiting factors, it would go on forever. A package within a package within a package... Like Russian dolls.

Left: the front panel of Cocao package for which the “Droste effect” is named. Right: An old Royal Baking Powder package which also illustrates the effect.

Since so many products are nearly indistinguishable from their packaging—(a tube of ChapStick, a can of Coke)—I figured that there would be lots of examples. My brief supermarket survey showed me otherwise. It’s quite rare. You can easily find packaging that includes packaging pictures, but it’s almost always a picture of the inner packaging—(the outside of the box shows the packets contained within)—or else it’s a cross-marketing campaign where pictures of other packages in the product line are shown—usually on the back.

(more photos after the jump)