Page 77 - Studio International - September 1968

Other books

reviewed by Colin Banks

Package and Print
by Alec Davis
Faber and Faber 84s

This is a splendid book replete with pin papers,
pomade pots, cartons, Crown caps and Tommy
Tickler's jam. Packaging is not such a transitory
business as one supposes, I recently fished up this
pottery lid from the Thames and thumbing through
the book I found that in 1660 Rbt. Turner, Gent. was
advertizing that his dentifrice was to be bought only
'in sealed papers at 12d the paper'. oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie
However the two to three hundred illustrations them round with a string; and then to clip the paper
showed a design of 1860 very like my china lid and close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as
another of 1940. a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop.When a
Not too long ago I bought a few ounces of tin certain number of grosses of pots had attained this
tacks and had them wrapped up in a twisted cone; I pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed
also watched a shopkeeper demonstrate the skills of label, and then go on again with more pots' ; the
tribal memory with a foot of twine, two square feet operative-12 year old Charles Dickens, who worked
of paper and 1 lb of gunpowder tea : so Mr Davis' in Warrens Jet Blacking warehouse near Charing
book has caught packaging still at the point of change. Cross.
Methods of selling have put more things into packs, The book ends with a quotation of 1899:
but the forms of packaging and sometimes the applied `There is a decided lack of style in boxmaking, (a
designs can be seen here to have a very long life, lack of) neatness and effectiveness.... The rather low
more often changes come with content. level is due, probably, to the box-makers' ideas being
The growth of packaging came hand in hand with the extremely subservient to those of the customers....
growth of literacy. Mr Davis puts forward the view We think the experts in every trade ought to be just
that pre-1830 merchandisers sought to imitate their a little ahead of public taste, and educate the market
betters in their 'publicity aids'—hence he says copper- to their ideas.'
plate visiting cards and small shop window panes, but When packs these days fall from their general high
the engraver was common to both, and large sheets standard of usefulness and visual excellence, it is
of glass common to no one before the middle of the more commonly because the designer was not briefed
nineteenth century. He is on better ground when he carefully enough by the client.
says package design could not acquire a style of its
own until there was lots of it—in fact a whisper is as
good as a shout in an empty room.
But even when printing could supply designers with the
sophistications of multicolour lithography and wide
ranges of display lettering, few printers cared to
boast of being packaging suppliers. Mr Davis points
out that this cut, Mardon Son and Hall, gives little
prominence to the fact that they were one of the
countries biggest bagmakers.
There were few overall designs on packs during the
period concentrated on by the book (up to the Great
War) and artists from Bewick to Alfred Munnings
supplied 'centre pieces'. Other heroes of the industry
round out this social history—here is a description
of the packaging man's burden in 1824: 'to cover the
pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of