Box Vox

packaging as content

«
»

February 10, 2010

Crayons and Cigarettes

Crayons-Cigarettes

Artist, Christian Faur makes—(among other things)—pointillistic pixel-related images out of crayons and at least one crayon-related, packaging-related artwork: the “Crayonettes” pack, on left. (via: Rungy Chungy Cheese Bees)

I like these conceptual packaging-mashups.

I wondered if anyone had done it the other way round. Sure enough, searching on Google for “Crayola + cigarettes” I soon found Emily-Kate’s “Crayola Cigarettes” pack, on right. 

(Also: in William Missouri Downs’ play, entitled “Dead White Males: A Year in the Trenches of Teaching,” in the “art cart” of roving art teacher, Ms. Woods, there is a prop box of Crayola crayons in which she secretes cigarettes.)

Because cigarettes and crayons are of similar size and shape, maybe it’s to be expected that they’d both wind up packaged in similarly constructed crushproof boxes. (See: Read It Dammit)

By combining their packs, we confront a stark contrast between the innocent childhood connotations of crayons, and the more adult connotations of a cigarette habit. This irony is not lost on the artists above or on the others who have employed the same idea.

(Multi-color cigarettes and crayon-based anti-tobacco campaigns, after the fold…)

FantasiaCigarettes

A pack of Nat Sherman’s “Fantasia Lights”—multi-colored cigarettes that are often cited for being too crayon-like. (Note: the gold pack)

 Anti-smoking

Above, anti-smoking ads employing the crayon-cigarette mash-up. (The boy smoking the yellow crayon is from an anti-smoking TV commercial.)

Image10Christian Faur “Departure” 2007, Hand Cast Encaustic Crayons

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Comments are closed.