Ever wonder who designs those products that make you stop in the store and think "I'd like to buy that, even if it tastes like goat-cheese-infused kerosene"? Then you'll enjoy Dielines, a website about packaging. If you're looking for something that uses deep psychology to explain how companies use design to make us buy things we don't want, you will be disappointed. The site likes packaging. It likes nice-looking things that aren't necessarily required to prevent starvation, and are hence inessential, but add pleasure to the ordinary transactions of ordinary life. Huzzah for them.
They highlighted this product the other day, and called the design firm, Neatly Trimmed Beard, "Minneapolis-based." As far as I can tell, the firm is in North Carolina, but one of the two guys who make up the company lives here. His name is Luke Oeth, and his work is amazingly good - from the concise, 40s-style logos to the ingenious label for Hobo Wine (looks like an ad agency promotional item, but I could be wrong) to the Twins commercials, it's what a trademark or label should be: you can't imagine it being anything else. The beer bottles are brilliant. It's what they'd serve on a train in 1948.
The metro is full of these people, and they affect the things you use or see every day. If you passed Mark Simonson on the street you wouldn't recognize him, but I'd wager that 99.9 of the people who live in this area have seen his work, and half of them bought something that used his typography. You included. Right?
(On his site he recounts the tale of recognizing of of his typefaces in the Star Trek movie. Lucky fellow.)
Any packaging you like? Any particular piece of commercial design prompt you to buy a product recently?
