Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

Nonetheless, unique brands should theoretically maximize their
uniqueness to corner their respective markets. But try telling that to the
makers of all those pregnancy tests. About a year or two ago, a clever TV
commercial for one of the leading tests showed a woman at home waiting
for her test results; sitting next to her on the couch is presumably her
husband, but he is actually a delivery boy whom she hugs profusely upon
learning she is pregnant. Okay, so I don’t remember the brand. (In fact, it
wasn’t an ad for a home pregnancy test at all, but for a dot-com delivery
system.) The point is that it was more distinctive than the package itself,
which follows rather lackluster conventions: white box with a red or pink
airbrushed hue overall, with a photograph of two or more of the testing
devices situated in the lower right-hand corner of the box. (Why they are
all in the same place, I have no idea.) Eschewed are drawings or photos of
babies, because the testing stick apparently has more allure. The logos for
E.P.T., First Response, and Confirm are set in different typefaces, but the
general “trade dress” takes generic to a new level of mediocre sameness.
If you’re wondering, however, why babies are totally absent on a
product devoted to making them, perhaps it is because the baby is a big “if ”
at this juncture and suggests false advertising—but it might also be because
they appear in abundance on many leading brands of toilet tissue. Charmin,
SoftPak, Quilted Northern, and Angel Soft packages all use different colors
and typeface combinations, but each features an infant or toddler to suggest
the quintessential softness of this essential product. Of course, there are
dedicated wipes for babies (on which infants are also featured), but the
heated battle for toilet tissue market share demands that these young
combatants appear as an ersatz seal of approval—and anyone who has ever
used the sandpaper-coarse Scott Tissue knows why a baby is not on that
particular package.
One expects certain products like toothpaste, denture cream, and
even preground coffee to have repetitive packaging tropes since they are
sold in supermarkets, where competition demands they conform to the
respective genres that people are used to. What’s more, the huge amount of
advertising dollars invested in promoting them efficiently impresses the
brand name on the consumer, making the package design slightly less
critical. Yet, a surprising but no less derivative product, is the common road
atlas. Although sold in bookstores, where the time for browsing and
contemplation is usually longer than in supermarkets, most atlases are
imbued with the same fundamental properties. Sure, all atlases look the
same anyway—a map is a map—yet the covers for different publishers,
which could be more creatively designed, are all bathed in that supermarket
tabloid yellow. Rand McNally apparently launched the yellow trend, and