design home product packaging products

Can Opener #642

I have a gripe. My husband shares it with me. Might you have the same gripe? Why can’t a can opener last more than a few months? Over our 3-decades plus marriage, we have gone through countless can openers. We’ve tried cheap ones. We’ve tried expensive ones. All seem to fail by not properly cutting the top off a can or by falling apart. Our latest can opener was from Ikea. Compared to the previous…

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how-to music product packaging technology tips

How to Add Album Images in Musicolet App

Buckle up, kids! Time for a tech how-to based on the trouble I had this week with the music app I have on my phone. I have used Musicolet for years now and I love the app, once I can get it set up properly. Hubby and I have a giant collection of compact discs (also called CDs for those who came along after CDs lost out to online music platforms). We like to be…

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design observations product packaging

Your Child WILL Defeat This Lock

It’s been a while since I’ve found product packaging that strikes me as strange or curious enough to share, but I recently ran across something that fits the bill. A child safety lock, the type that is plastic and loops over a couple of cupboard knobs to keep them held shut, contained packaging language that made me question why anyone would buy the product. The text on the back of the package, reproduced in the…

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design ideas pragmatic historian preservation product packaging

Can Desiccant Packets Be Reused?

In the further annals of product packaging, I’ve been flummoxed by another item that isn’t easily recyclable: Desiccant packets. These are the little silica packets found in vitamins and other supplements, in shoeboxes, and in any product that needs to stay dry within its packaging. I’m sure I’ve thrown away hundreds of these in my lifetime. I don’t remember when they became common within product packaging, but they seem to be in loads of stuff…

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art design history pragmatic historian preservation product packaging

Noodle Packaging & Preservation

Do you see what I see?     Both the front and back sides of these boxes of Great Value bowtie pasta and half-length angel hair pasta show pictures of the pasta. Yay! That means I know what I’m buying. What makes me more excited is what these boxes don’t have. They are lacking the plastic windows you find on most boxes of pasta. That makes these boxes easier to recycle because you don’t have…

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