Anyone else have this experience looking at packaging from around the world?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Re: Good Design and Pentawards
Thanks for posting that, Mariana! The lovely packaging site is, well, lovely. What was curious to me, as I looked at some of the photos there, is that I felt like it was easy for me to guess whether the packaging was designed in the US. (And when I checked the fine print, I was usually correct.) Yet if I had to pinpoint what specific design elements clued me in, I don't think I could. I know it's not just the words, though--the Fish, Bird, Dog, and Cat pet food packages looked "different" to me despite their English labels. I'm not sure what it is that makes me think "Yeah, that looks kind of familiar" or "Nope, haven't seen anything quite like that around here." Maybe I could pinpoint it in a few cases. For the gorgeous Duck Rice package from Vietnam, it was the typeface used for the words Duck Rice.
3 comments:
Interesting. I would have a hard time picking out the country of origin, but not the country of influence. For example the mints, this is clearly influenced by Chinese art. But on further thought, I guess this style is more popular as American tattoo art, which could lead to your conclusion. These are all beautiful examples of packaging, but I think in today's free world information is boundless so we are fortunate to get influences for our work from all over the globe. In the past there was distinct Swiss design, French design, etc. and today there is Swiss influenced design, French influenced design, etc. I think we are lucky there are no more rules. Thank you David Carson.
I remember Bob saying in class something about biodegradable bags and I found this at the packaging site.
60BAGS are biodegradable carrier bags made out of flax-viscose non-woven fabric. This highly innovative technology enables the bags to naturally decompose approximately 60 days after being discarded, which means they don’t require expensive recycling or disposal in land fills.
They look clean and ecofriendly but they are made only in Poland.
I also agree with Tess about the familiar labels, I believe that humans are always looking for places that are known, things that make them comfortable and familiar, perhaps because thinking less is easier and takes less time to decide even in the supermarket. When you are not sure of what you are getting or maybe looks a little bit different, that can scare the buyer and some designers want to innovate but they don't really know how far from home can they go. People are often scared of the unknown.
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