What's up with the icky cover? | The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes,...

You buy, therefore you must read this book. | The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive ... | Thomas Hine

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	• The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive ... Thomas Hine Back Bay Books, 1997 - 289 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

What a fantastic surprise!

I was actually interested in the history of the cigar box when Amazon suggested The Total Package to me. I bought the book as an impulse purchase (despite the cheap yellow cover that the book itself criticises) and I have been very happy that I did. I have not been able to put this book down. This book far surpassed my expectations and has been a wealth of historical facts and connections between the technology of packaging and our civilization.

I have read one strong critique of Hine's book in that it does not go very deep into the psychology of packaging and how it shapes the choices that consumers make. I think that is beyond the point here. Hine's work does an outstanding job of making an interesting historical narrative about packaging. Hine sees the world through the eye of the consumer from the epoch of the proto-package, through the world of boxes and tin cans, and on through cellophane and plastics. That perspective in this book has opened the world up to me.

I cannot recommend this book enough!

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What's up with the icky cover?

What can I say? As a book about packaging, it should take a lesson from itself. Sheesh...!

You buy, therefore you must read this book.

My community college graphic design students read this book for a class, so I've read it six or seven times now. Every year I look forward to it. It is a wonderful way to get my (mostly) American students to think their role in an economy they've rarely questioned. They learn about how products have been adorned and contained over the centuries and they also learn why great cities thrived with the advancements in packaging, why suburbs keep growing and why cars and groceries are an intertwined pair.

There plenty of insights here for the consumer who wonders why there are so many kinds of toothpaste and why there will always be a battle between Coke and Pepsi. You eat a lot of tuna? Did you know it was canned for the first time because a cannery ran out of sardines? Did you know that canning itself was developed for Napoleon's military campaigns? You know yellow makes products look cheap? You do, but you didn't know you did.

For designers it is an indispensible history that will help you locate your place in the world of business and the American economy.Thomas Hine discusses how research dominates design and how brand managers can wipe out your precious work with a single "Natural!" violator.

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Excellent Book!

A wonderfully interesting book about the history of product packaging. Very thorough and engaging -- I had no idea how important the paper bag was! Rich with insights about consumer behavior in marketplaces and the geographic evolution of the American shopping experience. I go it from the library and wound up buying it as a reference book for years to come!

Packaging Is What We Are

I fell in love with Thomas Hine's The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Container from page 1 for this book pulls you into a world that on the one hand is so familiar to you, but on the other hand yet also so unknown, namely the world of package - design and the world of stores.

In his book, Mr. Hine writes about the development of things that I had never even given a thought like the invention of the shopping cart and how it should not take up too much space or the design of the grocery store as a maze, but the book also tells so much more like what colors on the packages say about the products and so on. Mr. Hine even argues that "packaging is what we are" for "packaging mirrors its expected customers, and thus it provides an unfamiliar and provocative perspective about who we are and what we want."

Well, I consider this book to be a true eye-opener and I experience just walking down the aisles in a store as a truly unique experience now for I came to realize that there is a whole theory behind everything I see around me or every aspect of the store.

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In this fascinating excursion through popular culture and marketing history, design critic Thomas Hine decodes the secret language of packaging -- and explains the many subtle ways that boxes, bottles, and cans persuade us to spend our hard-earned money. Tracing the art and science of package design from its emergence late last century to today's most instantly recognizable brand images -- the Campbell's soup can, the Coca-Cola bottle, the Marlboro box, and many others -- Hine has written an essential book for students of popular culture, designers, marketers ... and anyone who goes shopping.

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