Consuming design
Posted 24 March 2009 // Julia Vodanovich
Vegemite
Even when I’m not working, no matter how hard I try, I don’t seem to be able to stop myself when it comes to commenting on, or acting on, something that I notice has been designed.
Or perhaps I’m just the perfect consumer. We had both Marmite and Vegemite at home in November, but I wanted to buy Momite – for Movember. I’m unashamedly influenced by labels, product packaging and advertising … and I get to work on images like these in Te Ara.
Sure to rise
I love both new and retro-styled products: like Vim, The Edmonds cookery book, Paramo, and this gem of an ad proclaiming less work for women. I wish!
I guess the thing with ephemera is that the best of it is loved beyond the original intended audience and lifespan. Don’t you want to hang this poster up in your home?
Dry white wine please
And this awesome poster reminds me of the ones that you might find hanging in the office of Murray Hewitt – Deputy Cultural Attaché for the New Zealand Consulate in New York city. I think it would be equally at home in my living room.
Images like this Yates’ garden annual are similar to the pictures in my mum’s scrapbook, which she created when she was a girl in the early 50s, and that I continued when I was young. The scrapbook was full of the only colour pictures she could get then – often labels from canned food – cut out meticulously, and carefully arranged on the page. Perhaps she used the Yates’ garden annual for pictures too – because those flat-looking veges seem very familiar.
Radishing design
The annual is my favourite because it captures a sense of nostalgia for me – like my other favourites I’ve mentioned – but it also makes me think that I too could be a designer.
‘Related entry’: when I’m in cities or towns I like looking out for old signs painted on the sides of buildings. They often hint at a building’s past life. For example, there’s a building in Wellington’s Ghuznee Street (now an apartment) which was built by Cadbury’s and has a very venerable looking sign advertising its chocolately wares - at least it did when I last looked, these things tend to get painted out unfortunately.