box vox

u-bet: je ne se qua

Cruel father that I am, a couple of months ago I acquired two foods that are quite popular around here, but instead of putting them into general circulation in the family cupboard, I kept them on my desk. After an interminable 2-month consumption-embargo, I finally got around to photographing them this weekend.

One of these foods was Fox’s U-bet Original Chocolate Flavor Syrup. Popular, because you can use it to make chocolate egg creams, but what is there to say about its package? There were other chocolate (flavored) syrups on the shelf, that doubtless would make fine egg creams. Why was this the brand I purchased? Clunky and typographically awkward. Some unidentified Shirley Temple-ish child featured in the logo—(the Wendy of her day?)

There would seem to be little here for a contemporary package designer to love. Why would I—why would any consumer buy a package like that?

In groping towards a working theory to explain its apparent sales success, I asked myself, “if a product has packaging that looks like it hasn’t been changed in 50 years and is still being produced and sold, what does that say about the product?”

Maybe it says: this product is very good and—despite the packaging—there are a great many loyal customers who know it.

I think that may come close to it. A graphically unsophisticated package will sometimes be given not just the benefit of the doubt, but an assumption of quality and ‘authenticity’, not generally afforded to the slicker, more mainstream corporate packaging efforts. Am I over-thinking it?

There’s a Flickr group devoted to hand painted “folk typography.” Is the u-bet bottle folk packaging? The DIY ethos of an earlier era—Mom & Pop cottage industry packaging? Or Is it merely kitsch packaging?

In a post on BoingBoing—(See: Hyperbolic Bronnerianism in Graphic Design)—Xeni Jardin focused on the typographic overkill of certain packages: “... crazy mushed up text with LOTS OF ALL CAPS! BOLD! I-T-A-L-I-C !  Nnnnnooooo negative space! on product labels.”

“Hyperbolic Bronnerianism” might be a subset of the category I’m attempting to describe, but not all of my examples would be so overblown. U-bet may be typographically unsophisticated, but it’s certainly not the cacophony of styles that Jardin is talking about.

Perhaps it’s naïve packaging? There’s a book out called Naive: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design. The examples contained are charming and vintage, but, to my eye, not unsophisticated.

Regarding vintage graphic design and “naïveté” Michael Bierut writes,

It is tempting to call designs of this era naïve. But I don’t think so. Not these designs. It would be, I think, incorrect to call Paul Rand’s Bab-o cleanser container naïve. It had a kind of knowing beatnik look... The main differences between those old packages and the one we have today is style...  Technology is style.

via: The Package Unseen

Sometimes, it’s the small regional products that have this “u-bet” characteristic. I know it may sound culturally arrogant, perhaps imperialistic, but, here in the U.S.A., if I stroll with my cart down the “international aisle” of my super market, I can usually find quite few packages with that u-bet je ne se qua.

Says Durban-based photographer/graphic designer, Garth Walker (about the orange bag of Nyala Super Maize Meal, on right):

This remains the best example of South African packaging that I’ve yet seen and it should be enshrined in bronze above every designer’s Mac. It falls into that “lost” category of local graphic design in which, like so many local brands we love and adore, the designer is unknown. Probably a “lowly designer” (in the days of Magic Markers and Letraset) working in the studio of one of our über packaging or printing companies. “Creative” was probably not mentioned in the brief nor in the presentation to client. However, it’s truly local, relevant, striking, unique and long-lived—a lesson to all of us trying to be “local is lekker” and build a brand through packaging. Oh, and I do have it on permanent display in our studio.

via: Design Indaba

At first, I was thinking of u-bet’s bottle as a sort of “outsider” packaging. Like outsider art: the work of some untrained packaging genius who follows none of the established design principles, but somehow gets it right, anyway. Perhaps done many years ago by the company’s founder (or an unschooled relative) and then left unchanged. Benign neglect packaging?

The thing is, while I don’t really know how long the U-bet Chocolate Syrup label has looked like this, I do know that it didn’t come in this type of bottle when it first came out in 1942.

(See the earlier U-bet bottle, after the fold...)

Yoav Kotik's Precious Metal

More jewelry of the handcrafted-from-actual-packaging type: Yoav Kotik’s rings, bracelets, necklaces and pendents made from metal bottle caps.

I’m interested in how he manages “raise the bar” on the perceived quality of this jewelry—(made from recycled bottle caps, after all).

On the one hand, his “Precious Metal” collection exploits the pop branding of the source product—(and gains some of the commercial appeal, inherent in the colors and logos of beverage packaging)—on the other hand, his jewelry seems somehow classier and more tasteful. This may be partly due to the photography and the use of precious metal settings, but there’s also evidence here of an artistic sensibility above and beyond the idea of consumers electing to wear brand-name badges (ironic or otherwise).

Some of the logos are cropped and truncated, making them almost abstract. The red ring, above (top, center) has no logo at all—just “100% Pure” and some incomplete “product use” instructions. While this still conflates our sense of ourselves with the products we use—(what does it mean for the wearer to be “100% Pure”?)—it’s not so brand-specific in this case. Not like saying: “I’m a Diet Coke girl,” which is, in effect, the message of a lot of the other pieces.

(Earrings and necklaces, after the fold...)

Cans Without Labels

Animator/cartoonist, John Kricfalusi tells an interesting autobiographical story about his dad’s motivation to buy all the “cans without labels” from their supermarket. His “George Liquor” character (above) plays the thrifty father figure. Below, John K tells the story in his own words.

It’s telling that, in order to “pitch” his project, Kricfalusi relies both on his skills as a raconteur as well as a cartoonist. Naturally, I dig the packaging-based story line (dramatically highlighting the importance of labels!) I also like the Ren & Stimpy-ish glee that Kricfalusi shows in George Liquor’s face as he demonstrates his deeply flawed method of sussing out the contents of the unlabeled cans.

(More “Cans Without Labels” artwork from John K., after the fold...)

Milk Carton Postcards Project

From Malaysia-based design firm, Grass Studio: a series of die cut postcards for Dasein Academy of Art that fold into miniature milk cartons.

As Dasein’s marketing communication demands more from postcard designs but production budget keep shrinking, we decided to recycle this die cut block & extend the idea into other low budget greeting occasions. Turns out, the project became a collection series that is highly sought after.

(One more photo, after the fold...)

Packaging Jewelry

Pepsi can earrings from 824 Nothing More

Following the functional traditions of jewelry-as-container—(reliquary lockets of hair, perfume ampoule necklaces and the like)—it should come as no surprise, perhaps, that many consumers are continuing to adorn themselves with packaging jewelry. This includes both miniature CPG jewelry and jewelry crafted from fetish packaging parts (like soda can pull tabs).

Top row: some soda can charms and a “crushed” silver Budweiser beer can pendant; 2nd row, left: Maison Martin Margiela’s can tab ring (via: Hybrid Nation); on right: Jack Daniel’s bottle cuff-links; 3rd row, left: Alex and Chloe’s Can Tab pendent in 14K Gold; on right Colgate toothpaste tube earrings; 4th row: Dannie Glam’s “Candy in a Bottle” necklace; 5th row: Sidney Mobell’s 1990 “Diamond and Gold Sardine Can”; Bottom, left: George Estrella’s sterling silver “Sardine Can Pendant”; Bottom, right: Ricky Boscarino’s sterling silver “Sardine Can” with bronze key and copper fish

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Carrie Garrott's Bottle Chain

From the Museum of Arts and Design: Carrie Garrott’s 2005 Bottle Chain. (Found glass bottles, dried flowers, string)

Smaller bottles than you might imagine from the photos. I thought they were full-sized mason jars, at first, but they’re actually miniature bottles. Each one is only 1-1/8 inches tall. 

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Fabrice Peltier's DesignPack Gallery

We’re all packed and ready to go on vacation today! Therefore: for the next 8 days, box vox won’t be updated as frequently. I do have a couple of posts timed to go up automatically next week. (But not every day.)

Where are we going? I really can’t say... but one thing I definitely plan on doing while we’re there is to check out Fabrice Peltier’s DesignPack Gallery:

Located at 24 rue de Richelieu, between the Louvre Museum, Decorative Arts and the National Library, the Designpack Gallery is a space dedicated exclusively to the art of packaging design.

Fabrice Peltier is also the founder of the agency, P’Référence and writes a regular column for Emballages Magazine. And (as if that weren’t enough) he also makes artwork from discarded packaging.

(See his Christmas-Tree-as-Recycling-Bin project, after the fold...)

Cross-Category Packaging (Part 5: Bottles and Jars)

This will probably be the last of the cross-category posts—(unless I discover some huge, unsuspected batch of cross-category toothpaste tubes packaging.)

Meanwhile, here are some cross-categorical bottles & jars. Sometimes glass, sometimes plastic, but all containing solid stuff, rather than anything liquid, as such.

1. Lots of candy is packaged in little plastic bottles and jars. Candy is one of those categories that seems very inclined towards cross-category packaging in general. (See: Soda Candy and Medicine Cabinet Candy) Kids seem to have some innate, cultural fascination with packaging. (See: Wacky Packages) Whether these simulated packages are appealing to kids as toys for “playing house” or as some sort of consumer-in-training, developmental thing, candy makers have apparently noticed that kids go for it. Baby Bottle Pop is the example we’re featuring here today.

2. The “Bottle Rockets Waterproof Nova” vibrator, too, comes packaged in a bottle. (via)

3. For some reason: Cupcake in a Jar. (Although this idea seems kind of counter-intuitive to me.)

4. Two watches: A swatch watch that comes in a bottle, and the Too Late watch (that we also featured: here) comes in a jar. (Photo via NotCot)

5. A treasure map puzzle that comes in a bottle. (See: Packaging Puzzles)

6. Two powdered mixes: a “9 Grain Beer Bread Mix” that comes in a beer bottle, and a pancake mix that comes in a conveniently half-empty plastic jug. (So that you can add the wet ingredients and “shake” it.) via weirdmeat.com

7. Baby gear including a “Six Bunnies” body suit in a pink jar, and baby bibs in baby-food jars—(yet another cross-category pack from FreshWear, a company that seems to be all about the cross-category packaging. See also: Milk Cartons and Egg Cartons.)

8. Spice Salt in a Tabasco bottle

9. Giant Art Jar of craft supplies

10. A survivor kit in a bottle—(not to be confused with the survivor kit in a sardine can!)

11. A firefly-theme T-shirt that come in a jar with holes on the top. (See: Packaging as Imprisonment)

(Another picture, after the fold...)

Melissa Martin's Parental-Packaging Sculptures

“Mama’s Milk” 2001, altered milk carton, pvc, spackle and paint

Two artworks by Brooklyn-based sculptor, Melissa Martin, both feature extended packages and are each named after a parent: milk carton for Mama; egg carton for Dad.

“Dad’s Dozen” 2001, altered egg cartons, polystyrene, spackle, paint

Both sculptures remind me of Tom Friedman’s elongated Quaker Oats box, but “Dad’s Dozen,” extended as it is to 3 dozen capacity, also reminds me of Thierry Delva’s “48 Dozen,” which had layers of 3 dozen (3 egg cartons) in a stacked column of 12 layers. (...and all of this attention to aggregate egg carton stuff with multiples of 12, somehow reminds me of Carl Andre’s numbers-based floor arrangements.)

(Another parental-package-related sculpture by Melissa Martin, after the fold...)

Thierry Delva's 48 Dozen

Belgian/Canadian artist, Thierry Delva’s 1995 sculpture entitled, 48 Dozen. (A column of plaster egg-cartons in a stabilizing, Jenga-block-style stacking arrangement.)

(More of Thierry Delva’s packaging-related sculptures, after the fold...)

Stocking the Shelves with Random Objects

One of Ceal Floyer’s “Helix” series: What looks like a shelf of randomly arranged, unrelated packaged goods (and other objects) is actually a rigidly organized artwork.

She begins with a plastic template which has a series of different sized holes cut through it... a tool for drawing circles. ... “Helix” is actually the name of the company that produce it... Ceal has filled every one of the circles ... with some object. Whatever fits that exact circle is used. A toothpaste tube, a Pritt stick, two different sorts of batteries, a candle, a roll of tape, a tablet...there must be about 30 different sized circles and objects.

And all of the objects have a patina of autobiography. But Ceal doesn’t give much away. It’s tantalizing because of its lack of real personal detail. But it’s also comforting in its use of such recognisable and familiar objects. There are a couple of things that I can’t name, but it occurs to me that they are those odd, orphaned pieces of detritus that love to hide at the bottom of drawers or shoeboxes, receptacles of the uncertain bits and pieces in life which we fail to throw away. It’s just such a beautiful and quietly brutal way to present a picture of a life. Whether she thinks of it in these terms I don’t know, but certainly very few, if any, of her other works include anything like as much of a sniff of her life’s detail. It is so rigorous and unflinching a piece. I stand and look at it for ages.

–Russell Herron

See Floyer in the process of stocking the shelves with objects that fit: here.

 

(The product which served as the organizing principle of these sculptures, after the fold...)

Some Selected Works by Gabriel Orozco

OK, I admit it. It isn’t hard to find packaging-related artwork in the oeuvre of just about any contemporary artist you could name. Like shooting fish in a barrel, really.

Better known for works like “La DS” —(where he cut a silver Citroën down the middle, removed a portion and then reassembled a 1/3 slimmer car)—Gabriel Orozco has also done quite a few of the sort of package-related artworks that we like to feature here. “Empty Shoebox,” for example.

In 1993, the year that he created “La DS,” Mr. Orozco’s career took off with multiple exhibitions. Among them was one that Marian Goodman arranged at the Venice Biennale, where he showed “Empty Shoebox,” an open cardboard box left on the floor to be kicked about. “It shocked everybody,” Ms. Goodman said. “He has a lot of courage in what he does and can be quite radical.”

An Artist’s Return, The NY Times, December, 13, 2009

Another package-related example: “Yogurt Caps”

Some interesting perspective on “Yogurt Caps” from the The New York Observer:

Earlier this fall, Ann Temkin, the chief curator at the Museum of Modern Art’s department of painting and sculpture, was working on the checklist for the upcoming Gabriel Orozco retrospective (opening Dec. 13) when it occurred to her that one of the pieces she wanted to include in the exhibition might no longer exist.

The work in question was Yogurt Caps, which Mr. Orozco, the Mexican conceptual artist, had installed at the Marian Goodman Gallery in 1994 as part of his first solo show in the United States. The installation was a provocative one, consisting as it did of nothing more than four clear, blue-rimmed Dannon lids, each attached to one of four walls of an otherwise empty room in the gallery.

“We had a little panic, my colleague Paulina Pobocha and I, because suddenly we had this flash, like maybe they don’t have those yogurt caps at Marian Goodman’s anymore,” Ms. Temkin said at a MoMA press breakfast earlier this fall. She added later: “I was curious if they had just been thrown out at the end of the exhibition.”

... The panic over the yogurt caps was swiftly allayed when Ms. Pobocha, the MoMA curatorial assistant who is working on the show with Ms. Temkin, called the gallery director and confirmed that the lids were indeed safe and sound and in their possession.

Or, well, they basically were.

The truth was that the original set of lids—the four that were used in the Marian Goodman show—were sold long ago to a private collector. What the gallery had on hand instead was a set of exhibition copies—decoy lids, you might say—that Mr. Orozco had purchased and put into storage just in case a need for them ever arose...

“I don’t remember if we ever thought they were the originals or not, or if that question ever came up,” said Ms. Pobocha last month. “It was never really talked about in [those] terms.”... “The importance of the work, I think, lies in the gesture more than it does in the actual artifact,” Ms. Pobocha said.

Goodman Gallery director Andrew Richards, who has worked with Mr. Orozco for many years, agreed. “It’s not so much the object that matters in this instance—it’s the idea.”

Fair enough! Except that the principal motivation behind using the exhibition copies instead of the originals, at least according to Mr. Richards and Ms. Pobocha, is that because the lids are so small and delicate, they could get damaged or even stolen in the course of the exhibition.

“You can’t just lift a painting off the wall and walk out of the museum with it. These are just much more fragile in that sense,” Ms. Pobocha said. “I’m not saying anyone’s going to steal them, but they could, if they wanted to. Also, if you think about how crowded MoMA gets on Friday nights, one of them could easily just be knocked off the wall and stepped on.”

As far as the regular viewing public is concerned, in other words, all yogurt lids are the same. But when it comes to the collector who paid good money for the original set, distinctions must be made. Such are the contradictions one must tolerate when monetizing conceptual art.

Hey, Are Those The Real Yogurt Caps? By Leon Neyfakh
The New York Observer, December 1, 2009 

(More package-related artworks by Orozco, after the fold...)

Kleenex Christmas Packs

More of those prism-shaped Kleenex boxes for Target Stores—the same construction as those “Perfect Slice of Summer” boxes. (Deconstructed: here.)

The sweet, felted illustrations by Betz White, in this context, turn the the usual idea of a crafted tissue box cover on its head. Toilet paper cozies and tissue box covers, have long been a staple of middle-American craft projects—(I remember my stepfather’s mother in Louisville having one of: these)—and the motivation for disguising packaged products has a lot to do with the public’s (former) ambivalence about keeping branded products out in the open. (See: Branding in your home)

Betz White’s project for Kleenex brings this idea full circle. Like a crafty wolf in Christmas sheep’s clothing, each of these “decorator” boxes proudly wears its faux “hand-crafted” covering, slyly embracing Grandma’s (now quaint) idea that commercial packaging should not be on display in your home.

(More pictures, after the fold...)

13 Quaker Oats Boxes

Another recombinant retail box sculpture by Tom Friedman, this one made by recombining 13 Quaker Oats boxes into one exceedingly tall package.

(Another artwork, after the fold...)

Fractal Jenga Box

A fractal-pack idea from the high concept section of London-based The Core’s website...

Designed to resemble one of the building blocks it contains, this self-similar Jenga box could, itself, be stacked like Jenga blocks for an in-store display. (More about how packaging can be fractal: here, here, here, here, here, here & here)

(Note: I extracted the single box on the right from The Core’s picture of stacked boxes below.)

 

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

 

Jac Leirner's Lung

Upper left & lower left photos: from Dutchnatasja’s Flickr Photostream; photo on right: from My Standard Break From Life’s Flickr Photostream

Maybe this should be my last post about Marlboro cigarette packaging. It started out innocently enough with the “flip top box” research, but I as I keep finding more and more Marlboro-related topics, it’s starting to feel a bit too much like chain smoking. Someone might mistake boxvox for some kind Marlboro brand “fan” site—the smoker’s equivalent of, say, the “Method Lust” blog. And It’s not like I’m a smoker. I can quit any time.

Which brings us to Brazilian sculptor, Jac Leirner. Like John Norwood—(who we covered: here)—the raw materials for her artwork above (entitled “Lung”) were accumulated via the artist’s own cigarette habit.

Lung (1987) was made at the time she gave up smoking. 1200 Marlboro packets (three year’s smoking) were dismembered into their constituent parts: each part, massed together, became a distinct sculptural entity and metaphor for the Lung. Together these made up the ensemble of the exhibition. One was made of the cellophane strips that you pull off first. another with the foil inner-wrappings. another with the price tags. and so on. Only the cigarettes were not there: they’d ‘gone up in smoke’.

Transcontinental: Nine Latin American Artists
By Guy Brett

(A photo of this sculpture from a distance, after the fold...)

John Norwood's Cigarette Box Pyramids

Queens-based artist, John Norwood’s pyramidal sculptures from collected Marlboro boxes. Another example of an artist making use of materials at hand—which often turn out to be used packaging. (See: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) In this case, of course, the medium is also evidence of the artist’s smoking habits and brand preference.

Similar to Marlboro’s own puzzle 4-pack package and other packaging mosaics—(see: Peter Blake)—Norwood’s geometric stacking arrangements seem related to Marlboro’s iconic design. The sculptures follow the same diagonals as the arrow-like “red roof” graphics on the cigarette packs, themselves. Norwood’s fractal-like arrangement uses the packs to create larger, somewhat diffused versions of themselves in a manner similar to Tom Friedman’s reassembled boxes.  

(More, after the fold...)

Sir Peter Blake’s Fag Packets

From 2005: Peter Blake’s silkscreens of unfolded cigarette packets. Partly an appreciation of vintage graphic design & printed ephemera—and partly a demonstration of traditional trompe l'oil, including as it does, the folds, wrinkles and frayed edges of the originals.

“...Sir Peter Blake's found art cigarette packets or fag packets as they have come to be affectionately known. This series demonstrates Blake’s belief that beauty can be found anywhere, even in objects that most would believe to be rubbish. The fag packets highlight iconic 20th century design and branding, a key component in the pop art movement. The simplicity of these pieces adds to their wallpower.”

from the CCA Galleries website

(Another photo, after the fold...)

They Might Be Barcodes

More fun with barcodes: CD package design by Heavy Meta (Barbara Glauber) for They Might Be Giants’ 2005 compilation album, “A User's Guide to They Might Be Giants.”

The barcode turns into an infographic on the back and wraps around to the front to become an abstract cover design. A good reminder that not only can UPCs be extended into representational illustrations—(see: here or here, etc.)—they can also be extended into abstract, decorative patterns. (An idea, which was also implied by these “Delishop” labels.)

And, yes, the UPC is still scannable, although, yes, it is possible that this design might cause some momentary confusion at the checkout counter.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Significant Jar of Marbles

I’ve briefly touched on the “Significant Objects” project (here) in my post about Joshua Glenn & Carol Hayes book: Taking Things Seriously, 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance.

A joint project by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, “Significant Objects” is a sort of spin off from that book. Previously insignificant objects are given new meaning and increased monetary value, by virtue of having been written about in a story. The objects are then put up for sale on eBay. I bid on a cursed bottle, but (luckily for me) I lost.

Since then, I’ve been monitoring closely for significant packaging-related swag, but I haven’t really coveted any of the objects quite as much. Until now with this jar of marbles.

The weird thing is—as unappealing as some of this stuff is at first glance—these stories do a great job at transforming your initial repulsion into a desire to purchase. I was not instantly drawn to this reused Beechnut Baby Food jar and I don’t collect marbles, but after reading Ben Ehrenreich’s disturbing story about how this particular batch of marbles came to be contained in this jar, it has, for me, become a very desirable item.

I pull a marble from your skull each time we kiss. “Give it back,” you say, each time.

“Darling,” I say. “Baby,” I say. “No.”

I put the marble in my pocket. Later, I will hide it with the others. But not now, because now you’re watching. Now you’re getting mad. I knew you would, and now you’re doing it. You cross your arms. Your features droop. Not just your lips but your eyelids and ears and the cleft ball of your chin. All of it droops. I laugh at you. “Come here, Droopy,” I say, and I try to kiss you, but you pull away.

–Excerpt from Jar of Marbles by Ben Ehrenreich

Unfortunately with the bidding already up to $28.05 and with three more days to go before the auction ends, I don’t think I can compete for ownership of these marbles. Not when I’m paying out of a joint bank account. Even if I were willing to spend $50, $100, maybe even more on this super-significant jar of marbles—how on earth would I explain it to my significant other?

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design