Dense Text – The Next Design Trend?
I’d like to call attention to what I think is the next trend in package design: simple, “old-timey” labels covered with dense text. I started noticing this on the label of what is truly an amazing product: Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. I have never used this product, so I cannot speak to how well it functions in its role as certified fair trade organic soap. However, in its role of making store shelves more interesting and strange, it functions magnificently.
Bronner's at a local Whole Foods, where it almost looks like it belongs
The labels are simple, printed in just one color. They have none of the slickness of most other brands of soap on the shelf, and that really makes them stand out. The label is covered with dense text running vertically and horizontally over every inch. My first thought was that this was a cute attempt to provide people with extra reading material in the bathroom. But rather than the cutesy marketing copy I expected, the text consists of a semi-coherent rant expounding the tenets of the All One God Faith. I take no issue with Dr. Bronner promoting his faith on his product – in fact, I think I prefer that to the usual salesy, consumery approach. Still, seeing this on the shelf at Target next to Dove and Dial is surreal.
But this wouldn’t be a trend if it were only one company. Meyer’s cleaning supplies have adopted a similar label, even using Bronneresque colors on their text-filled labels. Meyer’s looks a little more at home on the shelf of my local grocery store. It feels a little less new-age-hippy, and taps instead into a sort of 1940s, nostalgia-for-a-simpler-time kind of feeling.
Meyer's – it's like Bronners for normal people!
Of course, this trend can be traced back to some of the McSweeney’s covers, and from there to John Hodgman’s books and website. But I expect we’ll start seeing it a lot more. Within the next couple of years, I think we’ll see dense-as-newsprint labels move from cleaning products into every other aisle of the grocery store. It’s a look that feels un-corporate (at least, until big corporations start using it), so I think it’ll take hold especially among the ever-expanding all-natural/organic/cottage-industry set of products. I recommend reading glasses.
