packaging as content

August 23, 2010

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…)

Unretouched Photo on left: from eBay (sold for $13.17); on right: my retouched version

Okay, I retouched the photo on the right, but the Droste effect was strongly implied even without my making it so explicit. (Also: this soda-jerk can is an anthro-pack and he’s wearing what I like to call “a seal-of-approval” burst.)

Photo on left: shipping box from Dan Goodsell’s The Imaginary World site; photo on right: cap from Gregg Koenig’s Flickr Photostream

As I’ve mentioned before, it seems like most “Droste effect” packaging
relies on illustration, although there’s no reason that photography
couldn’t also be used. (As it was on this Budweiser promotional album cover)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

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