OH! I would be So Happy!

I was sitting at a coffee shop before work and In the corner of my eye I saw the chocolate bar stand and the side of a box of Oh Henry chocolate bars. But I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw the words SO Happy instead of Oh Henry. Brilliant I thought, what a great idea for them to do that. But when I actually looked, I saw it really ‘only’ said Oh Henry. 

And this got me thinking. It’s a great Idea. Now to sell them on it. (Hershey). Let’s make this happen!

So this is what I came up with by mimicking the current Oh Henry wrapper design.

Around the Block..... COMICS!

How does one get from here to there?

I love it when things smash together like chocolate and peanut butter. I certainly wasn’t looking for this idea but if you give me a few items I’ll find some way to link them together. It’s nice to know that even though Bubblicious gum does not have any comics they can still be inspiring, as well as pretty tasty too.

Kit Kat Evolution

Rowntree's chocolate covered wafer bar was first introduced in England in 1935 and was renamed Kit Kat in 1937. In the 1940's Kit Kat was exported and sold in Canada.

From 1945-1947 the original red wrapper was replaced by blue due to the shortage of milk.

I love the Rowntree logo on this 10cent wrapper and I seem to enjoy the brand design a lot more here, than I did when it was reintroduced by Nestle after they bought Rowntree in 1988

It's interesting how certain design elements are are phased in or out. The chocolate bar for example or slight lettering changes. You can also see here the number of grams the bar weighs fluctuating and then it's really super to see the evolution of Nestle's continual logo change.

2-Color POP Box

I have a few old candy boxes and these pictured below are a couple of my favorites. I absolutely love the bygone era of simple graphics in the use of basic one or two-color design.   

Turkish Delight Box 5.5 x 9.75 x 3.25 inches

A turkish delight wrapper today. In a way it's really not that much different than the old.

Hershey's Almond box 5 x 7.5 x 2.25 inches

This is a very well crafted box and probably sturdier than need be for it's rather smallish size. The inner box also has printing on the sides that mirror what is on the outside box cover and the bottom of the box has a caution label that want the store owner to make sure to take care of their chocolate bars.

FUN GUM TIME!

     It really is modeling clay and not gum. Though I suppose you can do this with gum but it would get dangerously sticky. But as it is now with the modeling clay, it's still dangerous because kids will just automatically eat this out of the package if they are not told because it really looks like gum. Not just the package but the clay as well. That's what gave me the idea for this.

     I was at a craft store with a friend and they wanted to see all the clay colors the store had to offer. When I saw the pink clay, a huge slab of bubble gum came to mind. (yeah, candy is always on the brain) "I should do up a package for some fake gum and put the clay in it. (Any excuse to do some graphic design.) But then I thought right away that it would be kind of dumb because what was the point of using something useful for an unuseful purpose? I would be wasting the clay for the sake of creating graphics and packaging for a fake gum. So, how can I turn this into an actual product? I wondered. Well, it already is modeling clay, So let's keep it as modeling clay but as a double bubble portion, to just fiddle with, and chew on with your fingers!

     It was super duper fun coming up with all the different inserts. Then of course, silk screening the pop display boxes and printing up a few 'what if' shipping boxes. What if I had a truck load of these. Those boxes you see below are unfortunately empty. I'll make just one box at a time. That's 60 pieces to cut out of the clay and wrap individually by hand. Yeah, they cost way more than 25 cents at this rate, but it's fun. It's something to give out or put in my Nakfactorium Gumball machine. And believe it or not, this photo below is not photoshopped. 

Here are some of the activity inserts. 1 of 30 different activities comes with each piece. There are also some fun facts as well.

Keep Foil Wrapper

Eat-Less - 2010 - silkscreened and formed - 10 x 2.7 x .8 in - edition of 12

     This is an empty calorie bar. On the back it says that there is absolutely nothing in this package, and there isn't! So often I make stuff with such valuable and choice material inside, but nobody wants to open the package for fear of missing out on its collectable value, like leaving a toy or action figure in the mint package. So in this case, as much as I actually wanted to have a comic book inside, I thought, why bother... the wrapper is enough. That's all there is. The visual gag is long lasting and it does actually go deeper than that. 

     These, I've been making since 1999 and is one of my earliest novelty items. It also happens to be number 23 of an ongoing series of books that I have called the Acid Man Society.

     At this time I was thinking about different ways of disguising a book and different ways of packaging my art. I was wondering , "where are some unlikely types of packaging where you may find a book inside but at the some time keeping the form of the package in line with a book format". Through previous issues of Acid Man I was already familiar with making tiny books and because the cost of making them had always been an issue, if I was able to make a book with with one 8.5 x 11 in sheet of paper, then all the better.  I also wanted to have a book in color which costs even more. I was thinking about gum wrappers ( I have a collection) I was looking at my "breath" doodles (I have a collection) - they were already small and narrow, plus they had the added hint of freshening your visual breath.   Oh wow, a Visual Chew! 

   

     These are the size of an actual stick of gum and to top it all off there is a white powder that gets all over you! Just like the real stuff.  On the edge of the wrapper is says: Keep foil wrapper to ensure collectable value. I really wanted people to open them up, not expecting them to put it all back together over and over again after showing people, but to keep all the components safe and sound and then at one point it can be reassembled carefully for it's collectable value. I've given some to people not even knowing there is a book inside and they just save them, thinking its just an old stick of gum. But I have that in another product of mine.  Later.

     Oh, You can go to Doodle Babel to get a taste of what these breath drawings are like or you can go to the Nakfactorium store online to order yours today! 

Aero Evolution

From Here To There

Wow, what a big change from this top left wrapper of 1987 to the top right wrapper 0f 2010. It seems like night and day, but if you look at all the changes that took place in between it mostly seems like a natural evolution and a  comment on the times in design. As well,  we will see the continual one-up-man-ship and how the effect of steroids in cows milk that affect the young designers today as if they are on acid. (just kidding) Read on. 

   

UPC bar codes began widespread use in the beginning 1980's.

52-50-066 This is an Aero Chocolate Bar wrapper from around 1987. This same design had been used since the 1960's with virtually no changes. Aero was originally made by Rowntree (since 1935) but merged with Mackintosh in 1969. The bars were previously 36 grams.

L5-50-115  In 1987 Rowntree Macintosh went public and in 1988 was bought by Nestle with an offering value at 4.55 billion dollars.  We now see the Nestle logo up front on the wrapper. In the following wrappers watch how the logo changes. 

If you look at the top of the wrapper there is a 7 digit number. The last three numbers seem to change with every slight change in design or alteration of the printed wrapper. I have a Caramilk wrapper where there is a single increment number difference and the only foreseable difference was a switch in the order that a couple of the ingredients appeared in.  So since the time of the wrapper shown above this one, there has been 49 changes to the wrapper. I am only showing a sampling of major changes in the design appearance of the wrapper.

Oh yeah, the Aero lettering design had finally changed after all those years and Nestle cut a gram of chocolate out.

Is there a difference between Milk Chocolate and Pure Milk Chocolate? Look above at the four wrappers shown together.

L5-50-129  Here we go with the Bubbles in the phrase Pure Bubbly Milk Chocolate.

L5-50-177  Oooo, splashly , wow, really in the big design mode now, what could be better than this? Can you sense sarcasm here. Why could'nt they just go on to the next wrapper? It seems that in product design one could only make little tiny adjustments to the design for fear of loosing customer familiarity or making it seem too much like a different product all together. So, I guess it's bubble steps....um, I mean, baby steps.

Notice the newer Nestle logo which has been continually evolving as well, and..... Aero is Big on Bubbles.

L5-50-242   I just love how the bubbles have now exploded throughout the design. I absolutely love this one. Why the pause after Big........? Again a new Nestle logo.

L5-50-242  (Why is this number the same as previous wrapper?) There are many changes again. The bubble slogan has changed and the Nestle logo has changed again! This wrapper from March 2010

Huge overhaul of Aero lettering style. (April 2010) I was not a fan at first, but it's growing on me. The number at the top is a whole new ball game. The slogan 'Have you felt the bubbles melt' has been shoved to the sidelines. Will it be totally gone next time around?