This is Origami is a project by designer Magdalena Czarnecki. It consists of a series of empty paper bags, printed on which are step-by-step instructions on how to fold the bag into an origami animal.
Her idea is that the profits from these could be directed to the WWF to help save the endangered animal that each bag depicts/is.
Neat.
Swissmiss alerted us to Boxed Water is Better. I quote that site:
Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project ... Boxed Water Is Better is a boxed water company... (who) decided to keep things simple, sustainable, and beautiful.
Just like the BVD 9-12-5 clock from last week, everything looks and sounds good at first glance. Here, though, you have to wonder whether moving the water from one gratuitous form of packaging to another is really the best available solution -- or if boxes just provide a surface that can hold some stark, modern fonts.
The adept commenters at Swissmiss article recognize this too: They noticed immediately that TetraPaks (and equivalents) are notoriously hard to recycle, where plastic bottles are relatively easy. They also note that people are likely to reuse plastic bottles, and not so much paper cartons. The bon mot: "Maybe I should sell fruit-in-a-box or dirt-in-a-box!"
Due to increased fuel costs, the price of food is going up, but instead of charging customers more, some manufacturers are simply giving customers less. For instance, an 11oz. box of cereal that once cost $3.59 is now an 8.7oz box that costs the same.
This begs the question: Why wouldn’t they just increase the price and be done with it?
I can think of two reasons which relate to two kinds of people: those who fixate on price and those who fixate on volume.
If price matters more, then people who can’t afford the increased cost might stop buying the product. Therefore, by pricing a smaller amount at the old price, the manufacturer helps keep its customers.
On the other hand, if volume matters, smaller packages mean people can only buy less than they want. As a result, they might have to buy more to satisfy themselves. For example, let’s say your family is used to consuming a 24oz. box of cheese crackers every week. But now you can only a buy 20oz. box. Therefore, you may have to purchase more 20oz. boxes or buy more often. This costs considerably more than the price of the original portion. Again, the manufacturer comes out pretty well.
It’s interesting to note that research seems to show that a significant number (at least half) of people don’t want less; they would rather pay the increased cost for the original amount. Therefore, shrinking does not seem like an optimal solution for customer satisfaction—it seems like it benefits the manufacturer more.
In a market (ha!) saturated with "zing! pow! zoom!-esque" design, London-based R Design and IDEO founder Naoto Fukasawa show us the path to cut through the noise, and create powerful, harmonious packaging design with less.
We'll let London-based R-Design speak for their design for Selfridges & Co. products: "...this colour coding of black shines on shelves that traditionally blind us with lurid rainbows. One color. One typeface. One point size. Packaging good enough to eat."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Taking design restraint one step further, the inimitable Naoto Fukasawa never ceases to amaze with this lovely package for banana juice. It is hard to extol this design enough: Fukasawa uses a communicative surface to actually remove the need for any type or graphics whatsoever. Nirvana.
Thanks to our friends at The Dieline Package Design Blog for the heads-up.
