Pangea founder Joshua Onysko to webcast on sustainability

There are those rare occasions when you listen to someone speak about their life’s work, not just what they do everyday from 9-5, with a real sense of authenticity and passion. And even rarer when you come away with a feeling that they have gone “all in” when making their life decisions.

Joshua Onysko, the founder of Pangea Organics, is one of those people.

I had the privilege to hear him speak in Chicago last Fall. He transfixed the audience with a personal story of wander, wonder, curiosity, a bit of luck, and in the end the vision to build a life based on some simple ideas. As he says on the Pangea Organics website,

“We only want to make things that make things better.”

He and his designer Josh Ivy are giving a live webcast on printmag.com next Tuesday August 4th titled, Pretty Green, How to design truly sustainable, truly beautiful packaging. It should be interesting. Here is the link,

http://printmag.com/Article/Pretty-Green-How-to-Design-Truly-Sustainable-Truly-Beautiful-Packaging

Package Design, a leading or trailing indicator, 1940-1950

The decade of the 1940s was a period of radical transformation for the North American consumer product industry, and can be thought of as three distinct time periods; a brief post-depression era of streamlined optimism about the future, the grim austerity of the war, and the exuberant post-war period of explosive consumer growth.

This theme of a transformation and focus on the future, especially coming out of the hardships of the depression, is supported by the package design images throughout this post. Each is selected to illustrate a brand’s design evolution during the decade of the 1940s. In each case the image on the left is from the beginning and the image on the right is from the end of the decade. Frankly, I won’t bore you with a visual critique or individual interpretation of each. In some cases the changes are subtle yet purposeful, but there is an obvious move by each brand away from the decorative and towards modern simplicity, that speaks for itself.

The New York World’s Fair of 1939, was “The Fair of The Future”. Envisioned by Walter Dorwin Teague, Gilbert Rohde and a seven member design board as a vehicle to highlight their design inspired “victory” over the depression, and to lead the American citizen towards an optimistic technological new day. The streamlined modernist movement was at its peak, and exhibits like General Motor’s Futurama supported this theme.

Early in 1939 Vogue magazine described the team of designers tasked with creating the fair as “men who shape our destinies and our kitchen sinks, streamline our telephones and our skyscrapers, men who brought surrealism to the department stores and the be-Tryloned Perisphere to Long Island  .  .  .  know all about the problems, the dreams, and the realities the future has in store for us. They are trained to think ahead; they know tomorrow like their own streamlined pockets  .  .  .  Let them have some fun”.

In many ways, the new post war consumer of the late 1940s and the growth of the design industry that served it, established many of the precedents that would go on to define the retail marketplace for the rest the 20^th century.

Many have said, and the modernist theme of the World’s Fair seemed to support the notion, that industrial design was a discipline that received its elevated image, and almost heroic status, because of its role in helping to stimulate the consumer demand that hastened the end of the great depression. As the depression eased toward the end of the 30s, work by designers like Henry Dreyfuss, and Raymond Loewy were looked at as an optimistic enlightened way forward.

Again transformation is a major theme of the decade, which began with the stirrings of growth and optimism, supported by the victory of the war, and ended with the massive growth of an expanding middle class suburbia, young families, and the retail culture made possible by automotive mobility.

In 1940 Norman Bel Geddes book, Magic Motorways promoted the idea of advanced highway design, and built on his theme of streamlining and futuristic design. Frank Sinatra had just recorded one of his early hits, “All or Nothing at All”, and had gotten his first big break touring with the Tommy Dorsey Band. Alexander Calder created Eucalyptus, a continuation of his sheet metal mobiles.

Also in 1940 Raymond Loewy refined the Lucky Strike pack. His design, a continuation of the basic red circle on a green field theme that had been used since the 19^th century, is shown in the middle of this image. It is a slightly simplified look made more “modern and streamlined” with the elimination of the large decorative “Cigarettes” type which had incorporated the art nouveau and art deco inspired typography made fashionable in the 20s and 30s. The addition of the thin white rule in the round target also adds to the sense of modernity and lightness.

The third white Lucky Strike package was designed in 1942, and shows the influence the war had on all consumer products. It eliminated the green color background, and the use of the heavy metal pigments required for the ink, a precious commodity for the war effort. The famous “Lucky Strike Goes To War” ad campaign was developed to highlight this package change to white.

Perhaps the most infamous package of the decade was the C-Ration, a basic utilitarian set of cans, boxes, and bags that our GIs loved to hate.

As designers began to support the war effort Charles and Ray Eames, who had been experimenting with molded plywood, worked for the U.S. Navy developing molded plywood designs for leg splints. From this experience they developed the inexpensive and iconic LCW chair after the war. In 1942, Artists for Victory was started. With an eventual membership over 10,000, it acted as the chief liaison between artists and government, and sponsored competitions the first of which was at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in December 1942

Also in 1942 Edward Steichen created a show at the MOMA titled “Road to Victory”, a mural of 150 photos, hung alongside text written by Carl Sandburg.

In 1943 Rogers & Hammerstein produced Oklahoma, celebrating American optimism. Most of the musical theatre world took little notice of the war, until the end of the decade with R&H’s South Pacific from the James Michener book about his experiences during the war. In 1944 Aaron Copland and Martha Graham collaborate on Appalachian Spring – again celebrating American values. Also that year The Society of Industrial Designers, a forerunner of the IDSA, was formed by 15 prominent designers, including Bel Geddes.

As the war ended in 1945, George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, E. B. White wrote Stuart Little, and Charlie Parker hired Miles Davis to replace Dizzi Gillespie at The Three Deuces on 52^nd Street.

In 1946 Tupperware was introduced to a growing consumer product market, while Jackson Pollock painted Full Fathom Five in 1947, one of the earliest of his drip technique masterpieces.

The decade of the 1940s ended with some interesting events that foreshadow key developments later in the 20^th century. The birth of suburbia was clearly demonstrated in 1948 as the iconic Levittown community was built on Long Island.

Also in 1948 the role of the designer in helping support modern technology was demonstrated with Elliot Noyes designing the first IBM Model A typewriter, and the Polaroid Model 95 camera, was designed by Walter Dorwin Teague Associates.

Transformation in lifestyle was a dominant theme in the 1940s. For most Americans, this decade acted as a bridge from the desperation of the 1930s to the incredible sense of unbridled optimism of the 1950s. Much of the package design work of this decade also acted as a bridge to a simpler more optimistic time. More on that in our review of the package design of the 1950s.

References

McCracken, Grant. 2005, Culture and Consumption II. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Pulos, Arthur. 1988. The American Design Adventure. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Jankowski, Jerry. 1992. Shelf Life, Modern Package Design 1920-1945. San Francisco. Chronicle Books.

Jankowski, Jerry. 1998. Shelf Space, Modern Package Design 1945-1965. San Francisco. Chronicle Books.

Haskell, Barbara. 1999. The American Century, Art & Culture 1900-1950. New York. W. W. Norton & Company.

Lucie-Smith, Edward. 1996. Visual Arts in The Twentieth Century. New York. Harry N. Abrams

Randy to the Rescue

Last Friday Randy Ludacer, of boxvox.net, and I had a similar reaction to a piece in the New York Times on the kitchen debates of 1959.

I wondered at the time about the origin of the S.O.S box prominently shown in the famous photo. Randy has done his homework and has posted some information on this box in his post today.

Thanks Randy!

Lehanneur’s, Age of the World containers

Every now and then you see a wonderfully simple synthesis of technology, design and serendipity. Saw just such a thing today. This image shows a fascinating group of new containers created by the French designer, Mathieu Lehanneur.

These containers take the age distribution of each country and create a vessel with the circumference changing to reflect the population distribution in each age range. Brilliant!

The pieces will be shown at the Issey Miyake store in Paris during fashion week in October.

Don’t need to say much more, their simple beauty speaks for itself.

You can read more here, and here.

S.O.S saves the Western World

Fifty years ago today World War II had been over for almost 15 years, and the baby boomers had been born. At home, we were running around our kitchens hiding from our Moms. At school, we were huddled under our desks, knees pulled up to our chins, hiding from the incoming A-Bombs. The cold war was hot, hot, hot.

Nixon and Khrushchev, the guys with the red phones and secret codes, were huddled at an exhibit of the typical American kitchen at a trade show in Moscow. With the S.O.S pads right there on the counter, and front and center in the famous photo taken by William Safire, who was there that day as a young press agent for one the show’s exhibitors.

The dialogue between the two most powerful guys in the world, as reported in Safire’s column today, went something like this,

Nixon: “I want to show you this kitchen. It’s like those of houses in California. See that built-in washing machine?”

Khrushchev: “We have such things.”

Nixon: “What we want to do is make more easy the life of our housewives.”

Khrushchev: “We do not have the capitalist attitude toward women.”

I love the juxtaposition, these guys playing house, and a box of  S.O.S pads is there (maybe its really Save Our Society), at least metaphorically, to save the day.

Anyone know who designed that S.O.S box in the late 50s?

Nussbaum on China’s Design Crisis

Bruce Nussbaum’s reporting, on his Business Week design blog today, seems to indicate an interesting issue with Chinese designers. He claims that,

“I’ve been talking to European and US innovation and design consultancies working in Shanghai and the rest of China and most are hiring Western and Korean designers because Chinese designers are not up to global standards  .  .  .  Reflecting Chinese manufacturing culture, the young designers want to get things done quickly, without much regard for getting it just right.”

Ouch!

I would tend to agree with him that, if true for much longer, this is a big problem for China. Western designers can’t possibly be expected to share the cultural background of the average Chinese consumer, so how can they possibly develop brand strategy and design new products and services for them.

But imagine if this were reversed and you had major Chinese design firms staffing their offices in New York, or Milan, or London with home grown Chinese talent, because the complaint was that these silly western designers just took too much darn time and were overly cautious and careful. My suspicion is that the Chinese firms would be accused of cultural chauvinism or worse.

I understand Bruce’s point, but not sure I completely buy it. I have had conversations with people who are familiar with the Chinese design education system, including Ric Grefé, the Executive Director of the AIGA. They come back nothing short of amazed at what is taking place. With tens of thousands of design graduates a year.

Nussbaum ends his piece by saying,

“To its credit, China has made design a national priority and is pouring billions of yuan into design education. What is surprising to me is how much further Chinese designers, even the graduates from the best universities, have to go to rise to global par.”

Did you watch the olympics? What did you think of the opening and closing ceremonies, awesome right? Is that a country that understands how to do things carefully and precisely or what! And those Chinese divers  .  .  .  focused, precise, and impeccable timing.

My suspicion is that the quality of the designers in China will track the overall quality of product and industrial development throughout the country. As China begins to develop higher quality products for both the world and domestic markets that go beyond the Walmart shopping cart, we will see an increasingly competitive Chinese design community.

This evolution from the lowest cost producer to a global partner, respected for the highest quality, is what happened in Japan in the last half of the 20th century and my guess is it won’t take that long for China. Just watch.

The package in the age of radical transparency

Information is everywhere, and access to it is getting easier to find. One of the really key questions facing product marketers, is how to use the retail package in the age of what some are calling “radical transparency”.

The package had acted until recently as one of the two forms of media where a consumer could easily find product information. The other form of media was of course, the manufacturer’s advertising.

Now information is everywhere. GoodGuide.com, is a website that draws on 200 or so databases to rate — and rank — consumer products on their environmental, health, and social impacts. They even have a mobil app for the iPhone so you can get immediate access to the information on your shopping trips. SkinDeep ranks personal care products like mascara and hair dye by matching each ingredient to findings of concern in medical databases. ClimateCounts.org scores the world’s largest companies on their climate impact to spur corporate climate responsibility and conscious consumption.

The question of the role of a product package in the age of radical transparency is really no different than the questions facing the publishers of the New York Times, or Time magazine, or CBS News, or the major music labels. What information do we communicate, how do we communicate it, and what is the impact on our brand’s long-term viability?

My view is that the radical transparency movement will only reenforce the traditional, and frankly very simple, role of the package as merely the most important vehicle for communicating the long term essence of brand identity. Nothing more and nothing less. And that’s a lot.

If brands are fundamentally about building value over time, nothing will do this better or more compellingly than the product package.

References

Goleman, Daniel. May 7,2009. Winning in the Age of Radical Transparency. Harvard Business Review

Does package design have a Walter Cronkite

I just heard that Walter Cronkite died this evening, and it got me thinking about growing up with the evening news, a simpler time, and whether our industry has such an icon.

The New York Times obit descibes him online as, “Walter Cronkite, who pioneered and then mastered the role of television news anchorman with such plain-spoken grace that he was called the most trusted man in America,”

In many ways package design and the network news grew up and matured together in the 50s and 60s. Who do you suppose “pioneered and then mastered” package design.

There seem to be some other american icons with such stature. Aaron Copeland in music, Martha Graham in dance, Ansel Adams in photography.

Perhaps Norman Rockwell was such an illustrator, or William Golden in broadcast design, Walter Landor or Walter Margulies might qualify in corporate identity, or Teague in product design, but who would that be for our industry.

Do you have any ideas?

Bentonville, too big to fail the environment

At a meeting today at 9:00AM CDT, Walmart is hosting what is called a Sustainability Milestone Meeting. The CEO Michael T. Duke, is apparently announcing a major new initiative, the creation of a universal rating system that scores products based on how environmentally and socially sustainable they are over the course of their lives.

Click on this link and you can watch the webcast.

As the New York Times article today says, “Consider it the green equivalent to nutrition labels.”

I suspect they alone are in a unique position to get this done. We are talking about the world’s largest retailer, and for most of my clients their largest customer by far. “Nobody else could pull this off,” said Michelle Harvey at Environmental Defense Fund, one of the groups involved in the creation of the index.

While I give Walmart a ton of credit for getting this started, I would challenge other major retailers to get on board and support the effort. My guess is that in this case the more voices in the development process the better. Those of us responsible for designing the packages that will support this program, will watch with deep interest.

No doubt there will be some serious tactical questions on the actual application of this rating system, I wonder for instance if this isn’t better applied to a shelf sticker or other in-store merchandizing system rather than the primary package itself, but I suspect that consumers will eventually find this a vital piece of information for an informed purchase decision.

a fine line

hartmut esslinger, one of the founders of frog design, inc, has just published a new book titled, “a fine line, how design strategies are shaping the future of business“. (The spell checker is killing me with all of these non-capitalized words, but this is hartmut’s choice).

The brief description says, “A Fine Line offers a step-by-step overview of the innovation process — from targeting goals to shepherding new products and services to the marketplace — in order to reveal how to arrive at an authentic human design that connects strongly with consumers.” Wow that’s bold!

Haven’t read it yet so I can’t endorse the process, but you can’t ignore this book, by this author. One of our true innovators.

Here is a short review in Business Week. My review to follow.