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Super PAC Packaging

As we enjoy a new, hyperbolic political season, generously funded by large amounts of Super Political Action Committee money, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some earlier types of Super Pac.

Not surprisingly, the name was previously associated with packaging.

SuperPac, Inc., whose logo appears at top, offers “A Tradition of Excellence in Flexographic Printing.”

SuperPAC™ (logo: above center) is a trademark of Thomasville Furniture:

Thomasville’s promise to provide our customers with the best overall kitchen, bath, and other room solutions initiated our development of SuperPAC, our patent pending packaging technique.

And SuperPac is also the name of a British company that makes a car stereo accessory. (Logo by Frankman Design)

Superpac is the new way to hold your detachable car stereo front. Designed to replace the dull black plastic case supplied with most car stereos, the Superpac offers you a stylish way to protect your cherished face-off style car stereo.

Mastey de Paris carries a SuperPac “Intensive Reconstructor Conditioner for Stressed, Damaged Hair” (above, right)

Superpac reconstructs damaged hair, rebuilding and reinforcing the hair’s protein chains. Superpac enables hair to retain its elasticity and structural integrity with newfound bounce and resilience.

Mastey de Paris

There was also a Timberland Super Pac boot. (via: Gwar Izm)

Nowadays, a candidate whose political campaign benefits from Super PAC money is not supposed to “coordinate directly” with his or her Super PAC benefactor. In practice, however, a candidate’s Super PAC is often run by a close ally—a Super PAC man.  (e.g., Jon Stewart is Steven Colbert’s “Super PAC man”)

Not to be confused with an earlier “Super Pac-Man.”

Top & center: Commodore 64 “Super Pac-Man” packaging from Moby Games; bottom photo: a General Mills Pac-Man cereal with “Super Pac-Man Marshmallows” from Jason Liebig’s flickr Photostream

Now, if we were willing to be more liberal about the spelling of the term—accepting say “PAK” as a reasonable variant (as in Political Action Kommittee?)—then there’s even more to think about.

(More, after the fold...)

TV Remote Bottle Openers

These four examples explored below...

1. The Clicker: a universal remote control with an integrated bottle opener feature, invented by David Dignam. ($24.99 with free shipping)

As with any good idea, the Clicker was inspired by hanging out with friends and drinking a few beers... in Wisconsin. David Dignam, the inventor of the Clicker, was traveling back home to New York from a long Thanksgiving weekend hanging with the guys in a small town in western Wisconsin (hometown to one of the guys). The idea hit him, “why not combine a universal remote control and bottle opener, and have one less thing to have to look for in your own home”. Thus, the Clicker was born, the ideal union of two of the most important items in the home: the remote control and bottle opener (for some people)

2. Magnetic Remote Control Shaped Bottle Opener: a sort of “fridge magnet” bottle opener that happens to be shaped like a TV remote. Does not appear to actually change channels. Buttons include “OK” and “Hello.” ($1.49)

“This bottle opener is designed with like real remote control appearance and it is quite absorbing. You may think it is a remote control when they take a glance. But it is a bottle opener in fact.”

3. The “2006 World Cup Party Edition” of the Philips Universal Remote Control. (Not sure if this is still available, but at one time it cost $12.50)

“With this special edition remote control you’ll be more than ready for the 2006 World Cup. It even comes with a bottle opener, scorecard and extra battery, so you won’t miss a moment of the action.”

4. The Pop Pops Remote Control Bottle Opener by Russ: a faux remote control, but a real bottle opener, packaged in a bottle-shaped blister pack. ($6.99)

“This cleverly designed remote control themed bottle opener is what you need to get the drinks and the conversation flowing! Hand painted, along with very detailed accents and a metal opener add style and functionality to this classic item.”

(See also: bottle-shaped bottle openers)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

2 Oranges: Geometry, Packaging & Ultaviolence

Violent, polyhedral orange chocolate packaging—two kinds:

1. Jessica Comin’s “laranja mecánica” chocolate package (based on Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange) starts out as a rhombic-dodecahedron which can be turned inside out to form a cube. Although the book and the movie made “ultraviolence” a household word, Comin’s packaging concept is violent only to the extent that one empathizes with a box being turned inside out. (via)

One remarkable thing about her transformable pack, is that both shapes—a cube and a rhombic-dodecahedron—will “close pack.” In fact, the rhombic-dodecahedron was the one close-packing shape that I was still on the lookout for. (The other four close-packing polyedrons with regular faces were already accounted for.)

Like our own interactive Gumball cube-pack, “laranja mecánica” is a novel candy package holding a minimal amount of candy. I figure, only 6 chocolate eyeballs, assuming that one goes into each of the 6 pyramid shaped compartments below.

A similar polyhedral model was constructed by W. W. Ross in the late 1800s. His “Exploded Cube” (below) is part of The University of Arizona’s collection of his dissected wooden polyhedrons.

 

And there’s an animated illustration from Apollonius Math showing how this transformation works...

2. Terry’s Chocolate Oranges (below) also involve polyhedral dissection, but, in Terry’s case, it’s a sphere of chocolate that gets dissected along longitudinal lines.

As for the violence, it’s implicit in the “whack & unwrap” instructions. Many of their television commercials have fun with exaggerating the violence required to open the package. Interesting to note that, in the photo above, the foil-wrapped chocolate orange, was, itself, packaged in a clamshell—the very thing that “wrap rage” was named for.

(The “violent” Whack & Unwrap campaign, after the fold...)

Formula No. 9

On left: an unearthed jar of Charles Antell Fomula No. 9 (photo by Debby Davis); on right: a 1953 photo of Charles Antell’s founder, Charles D. Kasher from Life Magazine

Okay, I know that I said that two weeks of Dead Horse Bay archeology was enough, but we went back there last weekend and I happened to find this Charles Antell “Formula No. 9” jar. Never heard of the product before, but its vintage styling and hormonal claims piqued my interest.

Promoted as a baldness cure—(“Did you ever see a bald-headed sheep?”)—the lanolin-based Formula No. 9 was the premier product of Charles D. Kasher’s Baltimore-based hair care juggernaut: Charles Antell, Inc. (“Antell” was his Mother’s maiden name.)

Originally this milkglass jar’s cap was white, enameled metal. (See photo on right from Pro Commerce) After 50 years buried in a Brooklyn landfill, its rusty cap has now bonded with surrounding rocks and roots. Giving the jar, itself, an epic hairdo.

Pictured above, holding a jar of Formula No. 9 in his hand, Charles D. Kasher looks like an interesting character. The product does not appear to have prevented hair loss in his case.

A gifted huckster, Kasher was a master of the unusually long sales pitch. (The more you tell, the more you sell.) His 30 minute television commercials (with titles like “A Hair Raising Tale”) were among the earliest examples of what would eventually be called, the infomercial...

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have done everything but go into your home and put it on your hair every day for thirty days. Now, it’s up to you. If you’re tired of hair trouble, and you believe as I do that [Charles Antell Formula No. 9] has the answer, step to your telephone now. Call the number you are about to hear. And if you don’t believe, or aren’t convinced, call the number anyhow. Because if it works, and it will, it’s certainly worth the price ... if it doesn’t, it has cost you nothing.”

via: NY Folklore

His Life Magazine photo accompanied an article entitled, “Money Makers of a New Era”— subtitled: “Despite taxes they take risks and make money from own businesses.” (Note to today’s neo-Reagan Republicans: Charles Antell, Inc. made loads of money and employed people despite taxes and certain onerous governmental regulations...)

Docket 6102, Charles Antell Co., Inc., and others. Order issued December 18, 1953 The order issued by the Commission in this case prohibited false and misleading advertising of Charles Antell Formula No. 9... This order affected the  advertising  program  of Charles Antell amounting to approximately $8,000,000 annually. Among other things the order forbade claims that Formula No. 9 would prevent baldness or loss of hair...

Annual Report of the Federal Trade Commission
For the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1954

One year later, Billboard reported that Kasher had cashed out, leaving the hair care company that he founded and starting a new television advertising company called “Television Advertising Associates” or TAA. (Note how Billboard characterizes Kasher’s career as a “meteoric rise” from “hepest of hep med workers” to “top spot on the totem pole at Charles Antell”)  Although he does not yet seem to have a Wikipedia page, Charles D. Kasher was a serial entrepreneur whose main career was yet to be revealed...

(More about Charles D. Kasher, after the fold...)

Martha Stewart & Lifebuoy Soap

Ever since we found a video of the Martha Stewart Tareyton Cigarettes commercial, we’ve been on the lookout for her 1956 Lifebuoy Soap commercial. Yesterday, it suddenly appeared on the Advertising Age web site. Unfortunately for us, that video was not the embeddable type, so last night I made this crude silent-movie version below...

Then this morning I found this embeddable version (via Professor Barnhardt’s Journal). It has a slightly reduced aspect ratio, but at least it’s a “talkie”...

 

Stewart mentioned her role in this commerical on Larry King Live in 2003...

STEWART: I remember making some commercials. I did a Lifebuoy soap commercial.

KING: You did?

STEWART: Well, when I was like 15.

KING: Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy.

STEWART: I played a young married. Can you imagine? As I say, I was 15-years-old.

CNN transcript of “Interview with Martha Stewart, Martha Kostyra”
Larry King Live, December 22, 2003

After seeing it again at an event last week Stewart commented, “I loved seeing that commercial because who smelled? — Did he smell or did I smell? It was done on Shelter Island. ... I took off two days from school, I had a chaperone.”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Anthropomorphic Aerosol Can

If you’re searching for something relatively obscure on Google, you sometimes run up against this smug, algorithmic presumption that you must have misspelled it.

Last week, while researching “Muffets” (the round shredded wheat), Google kept insisting that it was surely Muppets that I was looking for. To the point where I was forced to type: muffets -muppets (Muffets, not Muppets, damnit!)

But along the way Google showed me something that I was grateful to see: a 1967 commercial for Linit Fabric Finish spray, featuring an anthropomorphic aerosol can with the familiar Jim Henson/Kermit-the-Frog voice.

Predating Sesame Street’s debut by several years, the spray-can puppet was made by Don Sahlin and the “fair damsel” at the ironing board was played by Jenny O'Hara.

(Sir Linit photo & Henson’s “Linit Man” character sketch, after the fold...) 

Martha Stewart & Tareyton Cigarettes

Left: Tareyton Cigarette pack (logo design by Raphael Boguslav); right: still from 1960s Tareyton commercial

I’m terrible at identifying faces and I’m not saying for sure that this is Martha Stewart, but just hear me out...

Stewart began a modeling career. She was hired and appeared in several television commercials and magazines, including one of Tareyton’s famous “Smokers would rather fight than switch!” cigarette advertisements.

from Wikipedia’s entry on Martha Stewart

Okay, but was it a Tareyton TV commercial or a Tareyton print ad? (The quote above is ambiguous.)

Many actors who would later become well-known for other reasons appeared in the Tareyton ads. Examples include future entrepreneur Martha Stewart, who appeared in a print ad, and actor Lyle Waggoner, who was featured in a television commercial in 1966.

from Wikipedia’s entry on “Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!”

If this Wikipedia entry is correct and there is a Tareyton print ad in existence in which Martha Stewart has a black eye, then I suggest it might be the one below, on the right:

The photo on the left is Martha Stewart in 1961; the ad on the right is from a 1965 magazine

Some sources, however, suggest that it was actually a television commercial that Stewart had appeared in. In discussing Tareyton ads in general, MsBlueSky emphatically states on her Flickr site:

FACT: A then 25 year old Martha Stewart appeared in one of Tareyton’s television commericals in 1966 with Lyle Waggoner, a 70s TV actor.

That commercial is below, although I am unconvinced that the actress appearing in it is Martha Stewart. (Also: Stewart’s modeling career was supposed to have been while she was a teenager, so the “25 year old” assertion seems wrong, as well.)

In an interview with Larry King, however, Stewart does say that she appeared in a Tareyton commercial:

STEWART: During high school, I became a photography model. I was at the Stuart Agency (ph) and also at the Ford Agency. So I did modeling.

KING: Were you a successful model?

STEWART: Yes, I was. I mean, I wasn’t what is considered successful now with million-dollar contracts, but I made $35 an hour to start. Then I went up to $50 an hour. That was a lot of money in those days.

KING: Were your family happy with this?

STEWART: Oh, they were very happy and allowed me to save my money for my education. So it was all saved. And I remember making some commercials. I did a Lifebuoy soap commercial.

KING: You did?

STEWART: Well, when I was like 15.

KING: Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy.

STEWART: I played a young married. Can you imagine? As I say, I was 15-years-old. And then I did a Tareyton “I’d rather fight than switch” commercial, you know? And then I practiced smoking...

KING: You did a cigarette commercial?

STEWART: I know. I tried to smoke for a week. And when I finally made the commercial, all I had to do was hold the cigarette like that. So...

KING: You didn’t blow it out in that phony fashion?

STEWART: No.

CNN transcript of “Interview with Martha Stewart, Martha Kostyra”
Larry King Live, December 22, 2003

That being the case, I think it’s more likely that the video below is the Martha Stewart Tareyton commercial in question.

But go ahead. Tell me I’m wrong.

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

Squirrel Bottles

Above, three kinds of squirrel bottle.

1. Above, left: An 1800s Squirrel Bottle from the Moravian potters of Old Salem, North Carolina. (another style with mold on right)

“Of all the bottles produced at Salem, the squirrel form was the most popular, resonant of the general popularity of gray squirrels and flying squirrels as pets. The squirrel bottle, based on the Eastern gray squirrel, was in production as early as 1803. An 1806 pottery inventory lists 96 squirrel bottles. Two types of squirrel-form bottles survive: one that stands erect clasping a nut in its paws, sometimes with a spout in the tail, and the other leans forward and looks upward as if startled or begging.”

Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo
Art In Clay: Masterworks Of North Carolina Earthenware

2. Above, right: a 1960s Rocky—(the flying squirrel)—Colgate Soaky Shampoo bottle—shown with partner, Bullwinkle, the moose, in photo on right. (Soaky bottle photos from: Vintage Toy & Diecast Collectibles)

In a bottle related lead-in to commercials on the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon show, Rocky finds a bottle washed up on the beach:

Rocky: Look, Bullwinkle, a message in a bottle.

Bullwinkle: Fan mail from some flounder?

Rocky: No, this is what I really call a message.

At the end of this conversation, Rocky holds up the message for the viewers at home to see. I couldn’t find an image of that, but what I recollect seeing there was a spiral-shaped scrawl.

3. Above, center photo: this Summer, Scottish microbrewery, Brewdog used taxidermied squirrel bottles (and other taxidermied rodents as well) for their limited edition “The End of History” beer.

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

Packaging as Opening Title Sequence

In some films (& televisions shows) the titles and opening credits are conveyed via packaging. In 1, 2 & 6 the packaging is used to highlight certain ethical issues about various products—(tobacco, factory-farmed foods, and munitions). Sometimes the packages which appear in the credits support some specific plot point—(as in 3, 5 and 6, for example.) And sometimes, the point is more metaphorical—(as in in 4’s cardboard cut-out world, for example.)

1. In “Thank You for Smoking”—Jason Reitman’s first film—the title design and typography (by Gareth Smith of Shadowplay Studio) were made to resemble cigarette packaging.

“...Jason Reitman, the film’s director, came to us with the idea of using cigarette package designs for the opening title sequence. He had actually created a rough sample quicktime in which he superimposed basic text titles onto images of cigarette packages that he found on the web. It captured the tone of the title sequence nicely, and gave us a great starting point. We extensively researched cigarette package design and were amazed by its sheer variety. We did start to notice, however, that certain elements were often used: the colors gold and red, bold graphic lines and shapes, and images of heraldry. There were, of course, many exceptions. But if you look broadly at cigarette package design, these elements seem to be what make a cigarette package look like a cigarette package. There's something very serious and regal about most cigarette package design.”

2. In Robert Kenner’s “Food Inc.” (title design and typography by Big Star) are made to resemble food packaging and grocery store signage.

(More opening title sequence packaging, after the fold...)

Typecube™ — 3 more types

I’m done with the Rubik’s Cube thread for now. Honest. The thing is, it led me to some related loose ends—loose ends that I now feel compelled to tie up...

One of last week’s typographically-hacked Rubik’s cubes was Scott Kellum’s “TypeCube”—(inset, on right). Search online for that brand name, however, and you will find at least three other “Typecubes.” Not a huge trademark infringement case, since these are small DIY graphic-designer projects. Still—all but one of the designers has seriously considered selling their Typecubes and, for potential products, there may be some confusing similarity.

1. At top is Manuel Kiem’s 2007 Typecube. Not a Rubik’s cube exactly, but a twistable, modular font-stamping device, similar to Jas Bhachu’s more recent “Font Generator” which we also featured last week. Kiem offers a free font based on his Typecube device. (Scott Kellum also offers a free font based on his Typecube device.)

2. Center photo shows Regina Rebele’s 2008 Type-Cube. Her project is made of paper and is definitely not a Rubik’s Cube. (Although it does appear to be a “Magic Folding Cube”) Also: even though her Type-Cube is nicely packaged, hers is the one that does not seem to be for sale as a product.

3. Lower photo shows Chris Clarke’s 2008 Typecube. Her project consists of a cube-shaped box containing 64 small wooden blocks, which can be used to form modular letters or patterns. A more recent version of this idea may be seen on another graphic designer’s web site: jori-design’s “One Hundred Cubes One Alphabet” — modular typography via small, cube-shaped blocks.

I am not trying to cause any trouble or stir up litigation here. I’m just saying... if a typographically-inclined loved-one wants a “TypeCube” next Christmas—you just need to be sure you know: “which type?”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Prescience of a Pop Culture Sketch

There aren’t too many pop culture references to graphic design (or the companies that sell it). This TV commercial skit with Rick Moranis from SCTV is one of the few that I can recall. I like that it has two punch-lines. First the shoe—then the terrible logo.

Originally aired in 1981, it seems even more pertinent today with online sites offering low budget “stock” logos and “logo templates,” etc.

Granted I do have a vested interest in opposing this trend since we design brand logos as part of our package design service, but it only stands to reason that a logo purchased for $50 will not be as carefully crafted as it really ought to be.

It’s depressing the number of small startup companies that come to us for package design only after having already obtained one of these low-budget logos. Saying in effect: “You should charge us $50 less because we already have a LOGO.” —(Here, I’m imagining the word, “logo” pronounced as Rick Moranis does in the video.)  Anyway, it just seems like one of those penny-wise and pound-foolish business decisions that people sometimes make.

Interestingly, the skit was also prescient in its particulars. There are now at least two companies that I’ve found that are actually using the name “Logos Galore.” One is based in Australia and one is based in Michigan.

This might be an example of life imitating art—a case of “reverse product placement” for the service sector. Or it may just be coincidence. Although, for a current company name, “galore” sounds very vintage—(circa 1950s)—the words “logo” and “galore” do have those sound-alike syllables that make the combination sort of rhythmic and catchy. I can imagine more than one person thinking of it without ever having known about the SCTV sketch.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Wacky Packs: Right or Wrong?

In a recent post about LTL Prints’ Supergraphic Wacky Packs, I fretted about whether the juvenile satire of Wacky Packs made certain consumer products look bad. (And whether a Wacky Pack decorating motif for our office would be off-putting to clients.)

For some people, however, the more culturally significant question is whether Wacky Packages, themselves, are a good or a bad thing.

PRO: In an episode of Unwrapped (above), Wacky Packages are given a very favorable spin—(despite the vaguely Hoarders-like compulsion to collect that the Wacky Pack collector profiled in the piece exhibits).

CON: Michael Chabon, on the other hand condemns Wacky Packages as a commercial co-opting of kids’ gross-out humor.

“'I Remember how it felt, at the time, to open those first packs of Wacky Packages stickers: delicious, incredible, pleasurable in the way that only something truly wrong can be.”

Michael Chabon
Details Magazine, December 2005
(via The Boston Globe)

This article also appears in Chabon’s 2009 book, Manhood for Amateurs as the chapter entitled, “The Splendors of Crap.”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

As Seen on TV

Blister-pack/clamshell wrap rage is old news, but Larry David manages to give it a terrifying new geopolitical spin when (in Season 7, Episode 2 of Curb Your Enthusiasm) he asks, “What am I, Mohammed Atta, I gotta get a box cutter?”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Electroluminescent Liquor Packaging

Upper left: Ballantine’s new electroluminescent label for blended scotch whisky; on right: TyKu’s sake bottle with LED light source; lower left: J&B’s “Mix Light” bottle.

Ballantine’s new “Listen to Your Beat” campaign includes an electroluminescent label with graphic equalizer display. Designed by London-based “The Core,” this label is more evidence of a trend towards animated, self-illuminating liquor labels. Similar to these battery-powered T-shirts, audio references seem to occur frequently in youth-oriented liquor packaging. (The J&B bottle above is another example.)

Battery powered, self-illuminating containers we’ve seen before—(See: NXT on the dieline and this article on Electroluminescent Technology from Packaging Digest)—but it seems to be gaining a particular foothold in the category of liquor packaging.

(One more photo and several videos of electroluminescent labels in action, after the fold...)

Die Cut Windows

Top left: the open “O” in Organa’s label (designed by Copenhagen-based Rosenstand & Co.) works as a portal showing the product contained, and because of the darkening color at the edge of the window—looks as if the edges of the label were being somehow moistened by their proximity to the beverage; top right: Templin Brink’s redesign for Target store’s Archer Farms packaging uses die cut shaped windows —each one incorporating a view inside the box into an illustration of an animal on the outside. (Using the contents to make a kind of collage.); 2nd row left: London-based Big Fish’s design for Dorset Cereals used die cut grain shapes providing multiple windows into every box; to the right: BBQ sauce by the We Love Jam company uses a simple circular hole as a meaningful (if not actually necessary) peephole (via the Dieline); to the right: Azul Amuchastegui Bari’s concept for a birdseed box package that uses a bird-shaped die cut window to reveal contents and amount the remaining during use. (via Sylvain Allard’s Packaging | UQAM blog); Fire Road Wine (MM tells us this was designed by The Creative Method) uses a similar trick to the Organa label: ink color at the edges make it it seem as if this label’s appearance is the result of natural forces—in this case fire; bottom left: Israel-based Nine99Design’s die cut wine label uses a drip-shaped window through which you see actual wine (or not, if the bottle is empty); to the upper right: (via the Dieline) Sullivan Higdon & Sink’s design for Shatto Milk Company’s “Milk Soap” uses die cut windows to allude to milk bottles, signaling the product’s key ingredient; bottom, center: Migros meat package (by Külling Identity AG) uses a steer shaped die cut window to say “beef”; bottom right: Waitrose mustard labels (by Lewis Moberly) also speak about the contents of the jar with its dollop-shaped window.

Conceal or reveal?

Although some deceptive souls will use packaging to conceal the true nature of a product—a great deal of packaging shows that a lot of ingenuity and effort goes into actually revealing the product contents.

Plenty of boxes have die cut windows in various functional and abstract shapes. But I particularly like it when a label or a box reveals a portion of its content in a meaningful way. The shape of the opening, while technically a “negative space” where something has been removed is really an opportunity to say something positive about the contents of the package.

Some current examples above. Some vintage examples below.

With one exception (where noted) all of the above photos are from Dan Goodsell’s astonishingly useful online archive of vintage commercial ephemera: The Imaginary World. Top left: Rocket-shaped window for Brach’s Candy; top right: a dressmaker’s-dummy-shaped window for Trimtex Rayon Rick Rack (from Janet McCaffrey’s Primrose Design blog) 2nd & 3rd rows, left: 2 catastrophic, heat-related windows for “red hot” type candies; 4th row, left: Hopalong Cassidy uses a lariat/lasso to create a window into his licensed drinking straw package; to the right: a house-shaped Halloween-theme box for cellophane bags uses a square window-shaped window— (pretty much bringing the metaphor full circle); 5th row left & center: boy and girl Crystal Sugar Spec boxes, each appear to use a pair of die cut cellophane eyeglass-shaped windows, through which one views the candy sprinkles inside; to the right NuFizz instant soda pop package uses bottle shaped die cuts to reveal foil packets—using the package usually associated with soda in those day to signal a soda that doesn’t come in a bottle (its smaller-carbon-footprint was, perhaps, ahead of its time); bottom left: the box for Pactra’s water color set evokes Tom Sawyer, circa 1950s with its window through wooden fencing; Pearson’s 80 Spooky Stix box uses a die cut window that serves as a view both into the pirate’s treasure chest illustration as well as into the actual box—the same contents for both. (Now, empty.)

(Die cut TV and faux die cut windows, after the faux fold...)

Packaging & Cigarette Lighters

For those who think that carrying around branded personal effects is a recent cultural development, consider the promotional cigarette lighter. More popular when smoking was more popular, plenty of smokers apparently did not object to carrying a reminder of a product they liked. Or perhaps they just liked getting free stuff and accepted the advertising as part of the [free] package. This Reddi Wip lighter is from Roadside Picture’s Flickr Photostream. He says he got it on eBay for $20 and sold it for $150.

It certainly has its charms. Packaging whip cream in an aerosol can was a novel innovation at the time and people seem to love product names with cutely misspelled words. The miniature package must look pretty appealing, magnified in its little aquarium of lighter fluid.

I was going to leave it that, but then I got to wondering how many other package-related lighters were out there. (“Sigh”... see below.) The cigarette pack of course is an obvious one, but it was surprising how many products, unrelated to smoking, found their way onto cigarette lighters. Just goes to show how, at one time, it was a pretty safe bet that you could hand out promotional cigarette lighters and plenty of consumers had a use for them. (Think: Don Draper at Sterling Cooper)

All of these pictures above are from eBay. Since the auctions will soon be over anyway I’m not going to go crazy and link to them all. (If you want to own one of them—an eBay search awaits you!) The one comment that I’ll make is about the bottom row, 2nd from the left: “hair spray” seems an odd choice for a look-alike package/lighter, since hair spray is known to be so dangerously flammable.

(Some surprising new “packaging lighters“ after the fold...)

Package as Metaphor (Part 5)

Top: a 1959 Coca-Cola ad from RoadsidePictures Flickr Photostream; 2nd row, left: Barnum’s Animals Crackers from The Imaginary World; to the right: an ad for “Zoo Mac” animal-shaped egg noodles from Tracie*s Retro Flickr Photostream; bottom left photos: Fuzzy Wuzzy Bath Soap from eBay; to the right: circus train “Animal Crackers” photos from The Imaginary World

5. Package as Vehicle

The package is a little vehicle that the product rides around in. This idea might not seem like such a fundamental packaging metaphor at first glance. But to the degree that packaging is all about transporting products to distant & far flung consumers, it makes perfect sense.

Surprising how much vintage “circus wagon” packaging there was. (I remember the Barnum’s Animal Crackers boxes, but the others are new to me.) Not all the vehicle-packs I found were as vintage as these “circus wagons.”

Cars, trucks, buses, vans, rockets and a plane and a flying saucer, follow, after the speed bump...

Maverick Branding?

Some “Maverick” brands, including automobiles, boats, bikes, wine, e-books, Madonna’s record label, Monsanto’s herbicide, and cigarettes

In an earlier post about the packaging of Sarah Palin, alluding to the Republican campaign’s efforts to redefine themselves as the “maverick brand,” I had not fully realized the irony of using the words “maverick” and “brand” in the same phrase. Both words have, over the years, acquired new meanings.

Maverick started out as the name of real person, Samuel Augustus Maverick—

...a Texas lawyer, politician, land baron and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. His name is the source of the term "maverick", first cited in 1867, which means independent minded. Maverick was considered independent minded by his fellow ranchers because he refused to brand his cattle.

Wikipedia

The term, branding, as we in the package design business use it—brand identity, retail brands, brand packaging—comes directly from the practice of American ranchers branding their cattle to distinguish theirs from the herds of neighboring ranchers.

The unbranded cattle of Samuel Augustus Maverick came to be known as “Mavericks” and the word has gradually become a generic term applied to “anyone who could not be trusted to remain one of his group.”

As someone who preferred his cattle, non-branded, Samuel Augustus Maverick might almost be compared to Naomi Klein, author of “No Logo” (an influential book in the anti-branding movement—see: Branding in Your home)  The fact that his name has become a generic term and no longer refers specifically to him, is sort of reminiscent of what happened to the Band-Aid brand.

(More about mavericks and branding, after the jump...)

Canned Water

Anheuser-Busch ran into a bit of a PR-SNAFU after Hurricane Katrina, when their contribution of canned drinking water [1] to the post-Katrina relief effort was deemed by some to be self-serving and inappropriate. They had included a large Anheuser-Busch logo on an otherwise generic can. (An example of the criticism: here)

For some, the humanitarian benefits were overshadowed by the negative impression of a company using disaster relief as a branding opportunity. Evidence of corporate cynicism or a blog-o-spherical tempest in a teapot?

Reminds me quite a bit of the “Anonymous Donor” episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which Larry David not only ‘adopts’ an African-American family, whose home had been lost to Hurricane ‘Edna,’ but also contributes enough money to have a new "Larry David” wing built for The Natural Resources Defense Council.

His altruism is called into question, however, when Ted Danson [2] also donates money for a new wing, anonymously. By contrast, Larry feels that his motives are being unfairly impugned and that Danson’s contribution is “anonymous” in name only. (Since everyone seems to know full well that it was Danson’s contribution that built the “Anonymous” wing.)

With that in mind, it seems like Anheuser-Busch’s biggest sin was a lack of subtlety. A generic, non-branded can would have appeared more altruistic. And, as with Ted Danson, word would have gotten around about where the water came from.

Footnoted digressions:

1. In my interview last month with Bottlemania author, Elizabeth Royte—(here)—in explaining why PET bottles helped to make bottled water so popular, she alluded to research which proves that Americans do not like the taste of water from aluminum cans.
2. Does it strike anyone else that the current practice of people “playing themselves” in fictional story lines is a kind of product placement?

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design