<Main

Open-the-Box

ASSIGNMENT: Design a (gift) package for a food product (such as chocolate, candy, ...) or aromatic essence (soap, bath salt, but nothing liquid) that is designed around the opening experience and reflects the nature of the content, context, and relationship of the "giver" and "recipient."

Week 1

General initial thoughts: I'd like to create packaging that has a life beyond the "opening" experience, or stands a chance of not being immediately disposable. Ideally, the packaging would be integral to, or part of the gift itself. As much as I love a beautiful packaging and an engaging open-the-box experience, it does feel wasteful and environmentally unsound. As much as I love receiving and opening chocolate, candy, bath goods, I know that when I'm buying a $20 candle, only $3 is for the beeswax and the other $17 is going to the packaging and marketing crap I've fallen for.

The Harvest Moon festival just happened last week. The mooncakes given and consumed on this holiday are usually beautifully and elaborately packaged. I personally dislike the actual cake, but love the tins they come in. Sales have skyrocketed in the last few years, and environmentalist are concerned because they think the packaging is wasteful.There is an article in the IHT on this entitled. "Can famous mooncakes go green?"

Concept

Part of the challenge with the assignment is to create packaging for something that is taste or scent based, since these are senses we often don't engage in our designs. These are also ephemeral gifts -- you only experience once, before it's consumed or used up. Since the actually gift is ephemeral, I'd like to create packaging for a single flower. A lot of people don't think to buy themselves flowers because they don't last very long. That's partly what makes them special. As a student, I'm too cheap to buy large bouquets, so I'm sticking with one flower, which can look quite nice, but the usualy packaging for them is so ugly (plastic wrapper, often with ugly flower print on it, or if you're lucky, craft paper). It makes the actual gift look tacky. I'd like to make a package that can double as protection in transport (flowers get crushed easily, or are a pain to carry around in transit) and as a makeshift vase. Often, when you give someone flowers, they can't readily put it in a vase.

The "receiver" I have in mind is my cousin, Melvina. She loves flowers, is sentimental, organized and meticulous, and is pack rat. She saves bouquets she receives from special events (weddings, formals, etc.). As a kid, she used to neatly open her gifts and save all the wrapping paper. She just got married, so next time I see her, I'll probably be giving her a modest housewarming gift for her new home.

Protoype

I'd like to create a packaging with vents, so the scent can waft out, and visually provide a hint of what's inside. I'm going to use one of those plastic tubes at the tip of the stem so the flower can stay in the "box", which can double as a vase. I have a few laser cut things (napkin ring and stationery) that I find quite lovely. Also, I'm a big fan of Islamic architecture. Using the ultimate constraint (from God, no less) of "no graven images" as dictated in the Koran, they've managed to create extraordinary designs out of simple geometry. I was quite taken by the mahrabiyas -- the wooden carvings used for windows and screens -- the way they filter light, and their intricate patterns. I have a great book on Islamic art by Prisse d'Avennes, with his drawings of mosques in old Cairo. Jean Nouvel's building for the Institut du Monde Arabe has stuck in my head ever since I saw it, particulary the mechanized windows. It's one of the loveliest modern interpretations of Islamic architecture.

The first prototype, made from a box of soaps, looks a bit squat. Originally, I was thinking of how a flower looks floating in a plate. With the plastic vial, the tube needs to be at least 2-3" inches, which makes the proportions look silly. Someone in class brought up the fact that flowers are usually long-stemmed. On the other hand, a 2 foot tube looks silly too. I picked up a can of Pringles to look at it's dimensions. This thing will probably measure about 12" so it can hold a longer flower.

Final Project

The container is a series of 3 nested cardboard tubes that have been patterned by the laser cutter. As you turn the tubes, the overlapping holes form different patterns, and can reveal or hide what's inside. Once the inital sheath, is removed, you can use the rest of the package as a vase. The inner tube/vase is filled with flower petals. They hide the stem and plastic water vial. My cousin likes to save her flowers, and is a fan of potpourri. She can use this container to hold her potpourri. When the flower dies, she can save the container, and keep the petals in it. This tube is also vented so you can smell the contents. There is a cutout on the sheath that reveals the To/From message ("To Melvina, Best wishes..... From: Doria"). If you turn the sheath, a line of poetry ("God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December. -- J. M. Barrie") printed on the tube beneath it is revealed.

Final Thoughts

The prototype measure 3" in diameter and 12" high. The proportions are still a little off to me. I think I would add another 3-6" in height to it to allow for a longer stem. Also, the flower would look nice with more stem and flower revealed. I'd extend the top half of the sheath for another iteration to allow for this. Worked alright at home, but I had quite a bit of trouble taking the sheath off during the class presentation. (You do a no-tech project and it still has glitches!) It may have been the humidity that made the paper stick too each other. A few thoughts -- use some kind of coated paper to deal with humidity or wetness -- either from the weather or from the flower/petals. Use a thicker stronger material so it's less likely to fray and get caught on itself as you pull the tubes in and out of each other.