The Corner Grocery Store

  Winnipeg in the North End had a lot of corner grocery stores when I was growing up. Buying candy and chocolate bars to satisfy my sweet tooth was never more than a couple minute walk away.A lot of these stores had large hand painted 7-UP advertising murals on them. Now a lot of these corner stores have disappeared and/or the murals have long ago been painted over. 

  I was really missing them lately and I’ve always loved that late 60’s early 70’s graphic art style popularized by Peter Max. I was missing them so much so, that I painted one on the side of my garage.

I Could not resist....So Happy!

 

After my previous post with my Oh Henry / So Happy design, I could not resist making a full mock-up of the bar. It looks fabulous! Though, I do need to find a smaller ‘pinking shears’ for the zig zag cuts.

This past Friday I shared my idea with the Hershey Company. I really wish the internet didn’t make it impossible to actually talk to somebody at large companies. They did have a ‘share your ideas with us’ button to click on, which I used to submit my idea, but by doing so, I may have given up all rights to my fantastic idea, by having to agree with their 10 terms, which by the way I don’t agree to. It’s very unfair. I  don’t mind or care so much If I don’t get paid ( I have zillions of ideas per minute coming out of my cranium), as long as I get a years’ worth of Oh Henry! bars. And that’s a lot. It might be cheaper to pay me. 

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.

Caramilk Wrapper Evolution

This to me is the classic Caramilk wrapper. Maybe it's when I started to pay attention in the late 80's.
And the whole advertising campaign they had with the Caramilk secret, even in the seventies and using the Mona Lisa and her smile....all of it quite brilliant. I love how the 'wave' graphic starts to change through the years and also you get to see the Cadbury logo change. As a personal note, I do not like the  foil wrappers that are used now as they are so much harder to open without tearing.

Smarties Evolution - Packaging

In the late eighties Nestle bought Rowntree. I suppose, as a transitional package, Nestle didn't want to put their logo on the front. (The same thing happened with the Kit Kat wrappers.) In the scanned boxes below you will see various changes they made over the years, from their Nestle logo design to even the grams they offered, taking more and more away. Scaries came out a six years ago and they have been offering it every Halloween time since. The bottom one is the most recent as of Fall 2018 and is made up of 3 separate compartments, each with their own opening.

Chocolate Bar Certificate For A 100 Grand.

actually 100 grams
     Does this not look like a certificate or something like a stock or bond! Or the Golden Ticket from the Willy Wonka factory. The gold print and beautiful script lettering makes it look very regal and the separately stamped product batch number makes it look like it's registered and of course the gold foil wrap which starts to look like a gold bar.
     This wrapper is from around 1998, just before the 75th anniversary of Neilson's Jersey Milk in 1999 Though it was being made by Cadbury I am happy that they kept the old Neilson brand on the package and even to this day! After the 75th anniversary wrapper which was very similar to this one, they changed the package to a vertical sealed file wrap using mostly all the same design and coloring.
     What I find interesting is that really nobody, except for the graphic designers or printers, would ever have really seen the wrapper displayed in this fashion and it wasn't meant to be. I love it.