If MTV Rewind got me in a nostalgic mood, then this Guardian article about vintage crisp packet designs maintained it. As an avowed crisp fanatic, I devoured Daniel Dylan Wray's piece gleefully.
Crisp Packet (not his real name, folks) started his collection with the discovery of a pickled onion Space Raiders packet - an absolute staple of mine from the school tuck shop. He's right that the original design (by Brett Ewins, the artist behind 2000AD comic strips) blows the current version away.
For his part, Wray is spot on in saying that there's "a definite air of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon cover" about the weird tangled shape on the Odduns packet - it could quite easily have sprung from the brains of Hipgnosis. It's telling that I remember the design more than the flavour (cheeseburger, apparently).
Academic Annebella Pollen, author of the foreword to Packet's book showcasing his extensive collection, points out that "[t]his is children's culture. There was a clear strategic attempt to move crisps beyond being bar snacks associated with adult men in pubs and into kids' lunch boxes." In recent years, with the drive against childhood obesity, that trend has been reversed - with the unfortunate consequence that crisp packet design has once again become dull and undistinguished.
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