The Best Holiday Gift This Past Year

After opening several cheap moving boxes worth of gifts this year for the winter holidays, I came across my favorite gift of them all: an extremely nice industrial grade wok that I’ve been wanting for a long time coming. While I received other things that were absolutely amazing, including a sleeping cot and new recipe books and even a food processor, the wok was absolutely my most coveted item of the holidays. As I stood among the various ripped open cheap moving boxes around my living room floor, I couldn’t help but get giddy with excitement when looking at that beautiful wok.

You see, I don’t think enough people take an interest or even a love in their cooking and the food they eat. Too often, the majority becomes consumed in other things in their life, whether that’s work, family, or watching TV. And so, they dedicate less time to the likes of cooking authentic, home-prepared meals. And thus, their health goes down the drain because of it. That’s probably the saddest part to me, when I come to think about how little people focus on their diet.

And so, I think there needs to be a shift in the way we think about food and the process of cooking if there’s ever going to be a trend towards a healthier nation. Until that happens, our general health will be much worse off than other leading countries around the world. We need to make it a point to love cooking, to love preparing fresh food, and to love what we put into our bodies.

I’m glad I’ve already hit that point in my life, where I can’t wait to cook my next meal or prepare something new for the first time. I feel it’s allowed me to regain my health and have a renewed sense of love for the things I consume. Even better, it’s made me more environmentally conscious, because now I’m looking at things like where something was produced or farmed. And having more conviction in what you do and eat means you have more conviction in your ideals.

And so, this is why I’m obsessed with my new wok and cannot wait to temper it properly and have the inaugural fried rice that will kick off the new year right. Perhaps I’m a little too enthusiastic about a piece of cookware, but hey, I could be obsessed with something much worse, right?

Vintage Packaging Styles

One type of packaging style that’s coming back, not just in the fashion world but other areas, is vintage. Anything with vintage or retro inspirations is something that’s definitely building nostalgia, and also offers more and more popularity. These types of packaging designs are being used for everything from tubes of toothpaste to even different chocolates. This is something that a lot of people throw back to, as this is something that does help sell products better. Some people have benefited from it, but let’s take a look at a few of the popular vintage packaging styles that are still seen today. 

How Vintage Works 

The thing with vintage packaging, is it’s been around for a long time. a lot of companies still stick with more retro designs to showcase being old school. 

For example, some companies like P&O actually still keep a design that was used for their old soups in 1879.  It has a very classic blue and white color, and the combo is both very vintage, and very cool. 

Vintage is one that a lot of companies try to get right, but many times, they miss the mark on this. Here are a few things to consider when trying to put together this type of packaging. 

Font Focus 

If you’re interested in this kind of packaging, you want a good font.  Calligraphy was something that was super popular in the 90s, and a lot of the retro designs utilized that. This was something that did start to fall into the need for less uniformity, and it’s actually something that’s still required in a lot of types of ventures. 

Calligraphy, or unique fonts, are those that’ll make a brand packaging stand out. Plus, with more and more people taking a modern swing on their packaging, this is a great way to preserve that. 

Color Combos 

Color combos are something that make the packaging not only unique, but it’s better for the customers who want to remember the brand that you have. 

Bright along with bold colors and the neon colors that we see a lot today weren’t the ones that were preferred back in the day. 

Somber coloring used to work, and it was the preferred way for a lot of brands that did things. 

It’s something to consider, because you may want to make sure that the packaging stands out, but understand  you don’t have to use the brightest green in the world to make a point. A nice, deep red and blue will always get a nice reaction out of people, so it’s worth looking at. 

Packaging that’s Text Heavy 

While a lot of people may not like this one, some companies would use all of the free space that they can to advertise different products, letting the customers know about what they are, and their brand.  

Slogans, various ingredient information, and even manufacturing information including when you started also went on this. 

If you do use this, remember to be mindful of the kind of information you’re putting on there. 

Go for Colorful and Fun Imagery 

If you’re worried about the overuse of text, you can always add fun comics and images to make this really shine and stand out. This is a great way to get customer attention, as this is something that can be really good for that sort of thing.

Whatever the case might be, whatever it is that you might do, you want to consider these things when building a vintage packaging product and try to keep it within this as best as you can.