Salty corner

Way back i remodeled me kitten chin, fuzzing it with cuteness, also known as bead board, and installing a dish bubbler all modern and silent, except that it called for salt to be poured into its innards.  Looking online, i found some obscure product called "Somat", that was highly recommended.  The stuff has been sitting in a closet for a couple of years until i finally got tired of seeing these boxes i ordered taking up valuable rag and snorkel space, so i broke out the boxes and poured in the salt, needed or not.

But first, beauty struck!  A handful of nose hairs fell onto my lap not really.  On the corner of the box was the instruction to "press here".  The corner of the box?  i've opened a few boxes in my time, and never have i been instructed to "press here" on the corner of a box.  i was thinking shit, i'm going to have to struggle with this stupid gimmick cause its just not going to do what it's pretending is going to happen.  But i was wrong.  It opened effortlessly.  What an ingenious use of the tension that naturally exists between adjacent sides of a box about its corner.  Whats more, the corner of the box forms a natural spout for the ingredients to pour out when you tip the box.

Press here

Pour!

This is such an unexpected articulation of the corner / diagonal in packaging; something i might have expected the Japanese to have produced given their natural inclination toward articulation of the diagonal within an orthogonal system.  But not the Germans.

Packages 1

Every now and then, you run into packaging that strikes you as beautiful.  i remember thinking that Parkay (and maybe others used the same packaging) had a beautiful package concept, which had to do not with the graphics, but the package itself.  It opened in such a way as to foretell the delivery and shape of the item inside, which in this case was a stick of not butter.  i haven't seen this package in years, so i guess its been poofed.  The old style match boxes had a similar design, with a box within a box, one sliding with respect to the other, so as to embody a foretelling of the lighting of the match on the side of the exterior box, which i think is a beautifully simple, though most likely unnoticed, way of packaging matches.

Another favorite package is the Wiffle packaging for both ball and bat.

The problem, i imagine, wasn't an easy one to solve.  How to package a small round object with a thin object, 32 inches long?  The solution was brilliant.  A simple cardboard construction is placed at the end of the bat that is held in place by the friction created through the fitting of its (slightly smaller) hexagonal shape over the cylindrical form of the bat.

Hexagon to circle

This shape is then ingeniously cut along the folds of the hexagon to allow it to open and accommodate the larger "circle" of the ball, after which the cardboard returns to its original form of a hexagon to create closure.  The two differing diameters of bat and ball are reconciled through the manipulation of this single hexagon.  But thats not the end of it.  Even more excitement!  The cardboard, after returning to its hexagonal form, is now perforated on half the creases, with the intent that it be opened here in order to get the ball out.  After doing so, these "freed" ribs, through the nature of their geometry, can be bend down upon themselves so as to form a nest for the ball to sit in, against the back ribs which have remained upright.

Package, broken but showing closure of ball

Nest

At this point, a single person can put the ball in the nest, toss the ball into the air, and hit it with the bat.  In this brilliant packaging, the ball is reconciled with the bat, both prior to purchase and after, and from a formal standpoint, manifests that line, as bat, is but a series of many points (ball).  Nothing but clarity.  Now go out and play.