Earlier this week, as I struggled to open a package from the mail, I sighed and wished that boxes were better designed. Looking around, though, I noticed most everything was packaged in plastic anyway. Which made me wonder… what was packaging like before plastic? I did some research and, aside from reading about things like food wrapped in paper and milk in glass bottles, found a proliferation of lovely old packaging boxes. Paper engineering! To beautifully construct paper into a box without tape or other materials. I felt like I’d stumbled on a magical, Western-consumerist version of origami. Constructed box mass manufacturing dates back to 1890, when the Scottish-born New Yorker Robert Gair invented the pre-cut paperboard box quite by accident. (Of note, contemporary Japanese packaging is certainly exceptional as per this book and also this one.)

With it being almost Thanksgiving here in America, I knew the stores would already be full of Christmas wares. And, accordingly, some very interesting boxes! I wandered out, bought a few items (above) and unfolded their packaging (below). Not dissimilar to the joy of popup book design, looking at these pieces in reverse and trying to imagine what they would fold into filled an afternoon. Michelle and I would challenge each other with an unfolded box and ask the other–without touching the object–to draw what the box would look like properly assembled. (I spare you our hilarious attempts.) And, as happens so often, I was once again given the opportunity to appreciate how creatives’ efforts flow wonderfully into so many small moments of our lives.

Related artists

The exceptional Cuban-based duo Los Carpinteros deal with social aspects of design and architecture in their 2d and 3d works. You can read a good interview with them at Bomb magazine and enjoy their hilarious image of a box below. I am also indebted to Sarah Fagan for her thoughts about deconstructing boxes, as per her Box Drawings series here.

Los Carpinteros, Caja (Box), 2001, Watercolor on paper, 81 × 102 inches.

FURTHER EXPLORATION

Thank you for reading. Please enjoy these related works. A portion of all purchases goes to support Gwarlingo.

Thanks to hundreds of readers who have given donations big and small, Gwarlingo remains ad-free. Donors who give $50 become members. If you love Gwarlingo, please consider giving back.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: CORWIN LEVI

Corwin is a visual artist working in design, illustration, bookmaking, curating, and writing. As an artist, he has attended over twenty artist residencies. He has also have lived in eighteen cities across twelve states. Along with Michelle Aldredge, he co-created Mirror Mirrored: An Artists’ Edition of 25 Grimms’ Tales. He is currently remixing vintage game boards and making a book from illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.