Bountiful Fountain of Soy Milk
As a designer, I suppose I notice things that others don’t. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I noticed something recently while reaching for my morning dose of soymilk…
“Single” half-gallon of Silk® soymilk
Working in the design/advertising industry has exposed me to the fact that often, when products (especially food) are photographed, the artist will use an artificial (idealized, controllable) representation of the subject. I just take this for granted when I look at product packaging. But have a look at the stream of soymilk being poured into this precariously-pitched bowl of corn flakes…
Twin-pack displaying the glorious “extended pour”
So, basically, this just struck me as funny. I also wonder if anyone else notices stuff like this. Then it got me thinking: as a designer, a big part of my job is deciding what to do with “open space” (a topic for many future posts). Often it’s best to just leave it alone. Sometimes that leaves the composition feeling empty, and makes the focal area feel small and under-emphasized. Sometimes. I wonder if the designers at Silk started with a layout for the single half-gallon packaging (which feels balanced and resolved, to me), and then got the assignment for the “twin-pack” at a later time. What to do with that extra open space? I’m not suggesting the supernaturally elongated stream of soymilk was the wrong call. Strictly viewed as a design element, or a shape, it works quite nicely to create movement and frame the “twin-pack” icon. Perhaps I could call it “appropriately disproportionate”. In any case, it cracks me up.