Abstract
Today, we often experience “eating on the move,” such as grabbing a snack on the train or chewing gum while driving. Such a food culture in which people enjoy eating food in different places has been formulated by portable packages. Small paper boxes are one of the epoch-making products that have stimulated people to carry snacks, sweets, and cigarettes, in everyday situations. An important design feature of paper boxes is that their surfaces are covered with printed graphics and text as shown in Figure 1. As printing technology has developed, a wider range of detailed graphic and text designs, often containing manufacturer-independent information, have become printable in more limited areas. Such developments in package design have not only increased customers’ purchasing motivation, but it has also contributed to the transformation of the portable food culture. Our insight is that the development of printing technology has significantly contributed to this cultural transformation. This study will focus on small paper boxes used for caramels, as caramels were the first food products of small paper boxes in Japan. It is appropriate for analysis because its design has not changed for almost 110 years, and it is familiar to a wide range of generations despite lifestyle changes. Our key idea is to incorporate the perspective of media studies, which focuses on the materiality of media in the interaction of technology and culture. To elaborate on this perspective, we analyze package design as an intermediate medium of the interaction between food cultural changes and the development of printing technology. In other words, our investigation process is twofold. First, to capture the interaction between the development of printing technology and the birth of small paper boxes, we investigated what changes occurred in the composition of designs in terms of materials and sizes. We conducted a material survey and literature review using a collection of small paper boxes of caramels in the 1920s as the primary source material. The other process is to capture the interaction between the small paper boxes and cultural phenomena: carrying food. Concretely, we referred to company histories of domestic confectionery manufacturers and the advertising columns of newspapers and magazines as official records (Figure 2). Based on the results of these two surveys, it was found that small paper boxes created by the development of printing technology have influenced people's cultural practices. Furthermore, it was found that cultural practices have influenced technological development by enabling the production of a separate type of inner packaging that is specialized for carrying behavior (Figure 3). Our case study has examined the triad of culture, technology, and design using small paper boxes of caramels in Japan. Cultural progress in the form of lifestyle change requires the existence of design and the technology to create it. In other words, these three factors are interrelated. This study has the potential to contribute and be applied to today’s lifestyle changes in a digital media society.
Keywords
human-computer integration; bodily integrated systems; bodily design perspective; performative design practice; cyber-physical; embodiment; materiality; phenomenology; matter; mattering; deviant body; disabled body;
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.632
Citation
Katakura, A.(2023) Design mediating printing technology and food culture: a small paper box linking "eating" and "mobility", in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.632
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
doctoralpapers
Included in
Design mediating printing technology and food culture: a small paper box linking "eating" and "mobility"
Today, we often experience “eating on the move,” such as grabbing a snack on the train or chewing gum while driving. Such a food culture in which people enjoy eating food in different places has been formulated by portable packages. Small paper boxes are one of the epoch-making products that have stimulated people to carry snacks, sweets, and cigarettes, in everyday situations. An important design feature of paper boxes is that their surfaces are covered with printed graphics and text as shown in Figure 1. As printing technology has developed, a wider range of detailed graphic and text designs, often containing manufacturer-independent information, have become printable in more limited areas. Such developments in package design have not only increased customers’ purchasing motivation, but it has also contributed to the transformation of the portable food culture. Our insight is that the development of printing technology has significantly contributed to this cultural transformation. This study will focus on small paper boxes used for caramels, as caramels were the first food products of small paper boxes in Japan. It is appropriate for analysis because its design has not changed for almost 110 years, and it is familiar to a wide range of generations despite lifestyle changes. Our key idea is to incorporate the perspective of media studies, which focuses on the materiality of media in the interaction of technology and culture. To elaborate on this perspective, we analyze package design as an intermediate medium of the interaction between food cultural changes and the development of printing technology. In other words, our investigation process is twofold. First, to capture the interaction between the development of printing technology and the birth of small paper boxes, we investigated what changes occurred in the composition of designs in terms of materials and sizes. We conducted a material survey and literature review using a collection of small paper boxes of caramels in the 1920s as the primary source material. The other process is to capture the interaction between the small paper boxes and cultural phenomena: carrying food. Concretely, we referred to company histories of domestic confectionery manufacturers and the advertising columns of newspapers and magazines as official records (Figure 2). Based on the results of these two surveys, it was found that small paper boxes created by the development of printing technology have influenced people's cultural practices. Furthermore, it was found that cultural practices have influenced technological development by enabling the production of a separate type of inner packaging that is specialized for carrying behavior (Figure 3). Our case study has examined the triad of culture, technology, and design using small paper boxes of caramels in Japan. Cultural progress in the form of lifestyle change requires the existence of design and the technology to create it. In other words, these three factors are interrelated. This study has the potential to contribute and be applied to today’s lifestyle changes in a digital media society.