Monika Ostaszewska was a student at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw when she focused her graduation project on a packaging concept for a region in Poland known for the quality of its food products. Her idea was to create an umbrella brand called “Flavours of Podlaskie” for the region itself and sub-brands for each category of local food producers.
Aside from the fact that we find these shopping bags funny, they show the possibilities when designers literally think outside of the bag. When approaching an assignment, designers typically focus solely within the boundaries of the product itself, whether that is the edges of a page or the shape of a three-dimensional object. But sometimes the cleverest design answer presents itself in the way and in the environment in which the product will be used. What’s terrific about these shopping bag designs is that the user unwittingly is made part of the graphic solution. It takes the user’s participation to complete the visual pun.
Bear with me. This is hard to explain. We got interested in this story because we loved the graphics and packaging for the new Museum of Unnatural History in Washington D.C., which isn’t a museum and not a real store either. It’s the Washington D.C. location for 826 National, a nonprofit tutoring, writing and publishing organization founded to assist kids aged six to 18 with their writing skills. It got its start at 826 Valencia Street (hence the name), a storefront location in San Francisco’s Mission District. To make the place seem “cooler” to kids, the 826 founders decided to disguise it as a “Pirate Store” and stocked it with pirate supplies like peg legs, message bottles and hooks. Kids loved it and sales helped support the tutoring programs.
Back in 2009, Frito-Lay did a good thing. It introduced the world’s first manufactured 100% biodegradable packaging for its healthy SunChips snack products. Made from plant-based materials, the SunChips bags are said to decompose completely in just 14 weeks, returning to Mother Nature all that it borrowed. Better yet, designers weren’t asked to make major sacrifices. SunChips packaging, undoubtedly printed using vegetable-based inks, could be as colorful and detailed in design as its less eco-friendly competitors.
Everyone should be happy, right? What’s not to like about a tasty whole grain snack that is good for the body and good for the earth. Well, for one, the noise pollution. The high decibel crinkling sound made by the environmentally friendly packaging every time the eater reached into the bag for another handful of chips was so loud that it made it hard to hear the TV and annoyed roommates who were trying to get some sleep. Frito-Lay tried to put a good face on it, admitting that yes, the bags were a little noisier, but not a big deal. The uproar on Facebook and YouTube, however, refused to quiet down. Consumers felt they shouldn’t have to put up with ear torture just to help the earth.
You’ve heard the barroom ditty “99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer. Take one down and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall”? Well, try this one: “33,000 beer crates forming a wall, 33,000 beer crates …”
Asked by their client, Atomium, to construct a temporary pavilion in Brussels to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal World Exhibition, SHSH, an architectural firm with offices in Brussels, London and Sendai, constructed a “package” exhibition space out of 33,000 recycled plastic beer crates.