Financial analysts look to the industry as a market indicator. As Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal reports, rising cardboard prices mean “production is up and consumers are spending.” 17

Cardboard packaging changed how information flowed from manufacturer to distributor to consumer. Before, a product might be stamped by geographic origin, but now it was possible to communicate the address of the company’s headquarters, the location of its factories and canneries, and other details that established a brand’s reputation. (Some early... See more

My hosts explained that corrugated paperboard is a “mature industry.” International Paper has research labs that develop new packaging architectures and materials — ClimaShield® coatings for water resistance; SpaceKraft® for bulk liquids; “bliss boxes” to prevent leaks — but “most of the innovation,” said communications manager John Carmichael, “is... See more

The cardboard box is a minimalist form with maximalist ambitions, an arboreal apparatus made from one of the world’s most abundant renewable resources, then filled with plastic and moved around by copious quantities of oil. It doesn’t just coordinate and control landscapes; it transforms them.

As goods circulated independently in the world, no longer attached to producers or shopkeepers, packaging helped stockists and patrons evaluate the offerings. Labels promised standard quality and purity and predictability; they ascribed character to otherwise nondescript contents; they were a “tool for simplifying and speeding decisions”; they... See more

Cardboard’s ubiquity rests on simple claims: I can hold that, and I can go there

“Brilliant lithography,” the authors of a packaging textbook write, “was essential for selling canned food that was not visible during a purchase based on faith.”

The divide began to collapse between the artists and literary types who handled advertisements and the businessmen and engineers who designed products and packaging. Researchers studied consumer responses and developed theories about the psychology of color. Advertising executive Earnest Elmo Calkins launched a package design studio within his... See more

In the immortal words of Walter Paepcke, founder of the Container Corporation of America, “packages are not just commodities; they are communications .” 10