Coca-Cola. Campbell’s Soup. Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce.

Apart from being quasi-liquidy substances, all three of these packaged goods have one thing in common: super-awesome iconic package design.

Now stroll through your average grocery store and take a look at all the other horrendous labels littering the shelves.

Very, very few even come close to the simplicity and elegance of the above mentioned three.

And of my many crackpot theories, I have one to explain this particular phenomenon.

The difference is that Coke’s, Campbell’s and Tabasco’s label designs are all at least one hundred years old.

They were created when there were no computers; there was no Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop or InDesign or Quark Xpress or anything but paper, pencil and brush.

In other words, they were created in an era when graphic artists actually had to have artistic skill.

Take a second look at the stuff on the shelves and you’ll see all the hallmarks of clumsily-wielded computer tools: drop shadows, gradients, type-on-a-curve.

No thought, just more of a “Hey, let’s see what this tool can do” approach to design.

The result is packages more tasteless than most of the products they contain.

So why do I, an ad creative – and a writer at that – care about package design?

Once, at band camp (only it wasn’t band camp; it was a focus group), my partner Elspeth and I sat in as the client did some preliminary consumer research.

El and I both thought the package was pretty horrible but said nothing.

Others weren’t so quiet.

In every group – even though the package design was not part of the discussion – at least one of the consumer respondents commented on how ugly the package was.

After this happened a couple of times, Elspeth politely inquired if there was any way we could look at redesigning the package.

The client, semi-seething at the unexpected commentary from the other side of the glass, responded, “That is the new package design.”

It was ass.

As creatives, we know that no matter how hard we strive at concept and art direction, the work will always be handicapped (read: less effective) if the product is just damned ugly.

I tells ya, it’s a lot easier to sell a swan than a turkey.

(Apple certainly gets that with its prettiest-if-not-best-in-class technology.)

But okay, so far my rant has been all about aesthetics – but today I discovered something about contemporary package design that annoys the writer in me.

It’s not just tacky; it doesn’t communicate either!

Coca-Cola. Campbell’s Soup. Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce.

Yup. It’s pretty clear from all of these labels that what you have is cola, soup and pepper sauce – it’s there in nice readable type.

But this morning I was in the shower and ran out of my soap and so had to resort to doing the job with something from my wife’s vast arsenal.

But there was a problem.

About three years ago, I had to start wearing glasses and since it is not my habit to wear said glasses in the shower, I couldn’t tell body wash from shampoo from conditioner from hair remover from axle grease.

My eyes aren’t that bad; it’s just that the goofs that design these packages are not only unfamiliar with good taste, they don’t get communication either.

It was only after getting out of the shower and retrieving my glasses that I was able to a) find, and then b) read, the tiny type that identified what each product was.

C’mon, package design guys!

We’re all in this marketing thing together and it’s an old cliché, but we’re only as strong as the weakest link.

It’s time package design had its own creative revolution.

Until then, I’ll be smelling faintly of axle grease.

- Craig Cooper