Reading packages: social semiotics on the shelf

Introduction

Food packaging has a long history, dating back at least to Antiquity. Famous examples are the large earthenware jars used for storing wine, grain and olive oil that were found at Knossos. In our industrialised society, food packages are mass-produced objects that not only need to protect and preserve food, but also to act on a market. They are designed to look good on the shelf in the supermarket, to be pleasant to hold, to be easy to open and to convey information about their content. Since they are multimodal and combine textual, visual, aural and tactile modes, packages lend themselves well to semiotic analysis, and this article is intended to contribute to this under-researched area.

In the field of marketing and consumer behaviour some research concerning packaging has been carried out. Underwood (2003) claims that packaging has come to play a more prominent role in the marketplace, and should be seen as a product-related attribute of importance for the communication of brand identity. How packages form part of the brand architecture of grocery retailers has been studied by Esbjerg and Bech-Larsen (2009). Both they and Ampuero and Vila (2006) discuss how colour conveys information about the quality of a product. For instance, dark colours are often used to signal premium products. While most packaging is designed to make the product desirable in the eyes of consumers, the goal is sometimes to deter them from buying the product. Such a case is health warnings on cigarette packs, whose effect has been studied from the point of view of experimental psychology (Munafò et al., 2011). The sociology of markets has been one of the main interests of Cochoy (2000, 2004, 2014), who analyses the role of material artefacts such as packages through the lens of actor-network theory.

In an EU-funded project on consumers’ attitudes to baby food labels, methodologically important steps were taken by applying discourse analysis to the study of label literacy (Björkvall, 2000; Haddington, 2001). Cook and O’Halloran (1999) found that there is no sharp dividing line between information and persuasion, and Graddol’s (1996) study on a wine label supports the previous research by showing how the label encompasses contradictory ways of addressing the consumer. These contributions have been made by linguists and are consequently rather centred around language and text. As my background is in art history and visual studies, my own research has focused on packaging as part of visual culture, the relationship between the tactile and visual dimension of packaging and how packaging can be seen as an actor in a retailing context (Wagner, 2012, 2013a, 2013b).

Signs exist within a code – a system where rules based on social conventions dictate how the signs should be interpreted (Eco, 1979: 4, 37). Signs and codes are not static, but are subject to change and transformation. The purpose of this article is to show how semiosis occurs in the context of food packaging. I will argue that continuous semiotic change – transformation of signs and codes – is a prominent feature in this context.

Packages are circumscribed by regulations, logistic demands, marketing conventions and limitations in space. There is an interesting tension between restrictions and room for creativity, and designers try their best to overcome the limitations. According to Umberto Eco (1976) there is a difference between rule-governed creativity and rule-changing creativity. The latter means that ‘the painter has to invent a sign function, and since every sign function is based on a code, he has to propose a new way of coding’ (p. 188). Although the context that Eco is referring to is fine arts, packaging would arguably present as many opportunities for studying the inventions of signs and the transformation of codes. In the very last sentence of his treatise on semiotics, Eco states that semiotics is not only of theoretical interest, but also a social practice. The social dimension of sign-making is the focus of social semiotics: ‘it is the transformative action of individuals, along the contours of social givens, which constantly reshapes the resources’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 13). Packaging offers a dynamic area where resources keep being reshaped and transformed, which I will show by some relevant cases. I will conclude by discussing the limitations of the theoretical framework with regard to packaging and suggest some additions.

The Framework of Social Semiotics and Packaging

A basic question is how packages should be conceptualized within the framework of social semiotics. Are they to be regarded as a semiotic mode, a resource, a medium or an applied environment? On the very first page of the introduction to Reading Images, packaging is mentioned as an example of ‘an applied environment’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 1). This concept, however, does not recur in the literature on social semiotics. To be called a mode, a resource needs to meet certain demands for systematicity: ‘If the resource is sufficiently developed for sign-making we will call it a mode’ (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2002: 346). Colour (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2002) and typography (Van Leeuwen, 2006) have been found to meet these requirements, while texture is treated under the more general label resource (Djonov and Van Leeuwen, 2011: 542). Another way of distinguishing between modes and non-modes is through the dichotomy abstract – concrete: modes are abstract and non-material, while the material forms in which modes are realised can be called media (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001: 21–22). Writing, images and music are examples of modes whereas books, television and computers are examples of media.

On the subject of materiality and meaning, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006: 231) mention dress and bodily performance as examples of semiotic modes, which illustrates that there is no clear-cut boundary between modes and non-modes. The dichotomic way of distinguishing between modes and media can be criticised on the ground that materiality is an intrinsic quality of all modes. In his book, The Language of Colour, Van Leeuwen (2011b: 30) tries to resolve this dilemma by saying that colour can be understood as a mode but also as a medium, depending on whether one is interested mainly in the systematic or in the material aspects of colour. Although packaging can be seen as a highly developed communicational system, I would rather call it a medium than a mode. Kress (2004) writes about constellations of mode and media, for example the medium of packaging combined with the modes of writing and images. The concept of constellation implicates that the materiality of both modes and media could be considered simultaneously.

Can packages be read? They can indeed, and they are in many ways similar to books, or more precisely, to book covers. Many packages are rectangular boxes with side panels that are narrower than the front and back panels. Both book covers and packages have to perform the task of conveying information about the content. However, packages offer themselves to sequential reading to a lesser extent than book covers. The organisation of the surface of the package is often collage-like, consisting of chunks of information, for example the ingredients list that some consumers might turn to first, without studying the front more than casually. Packages can also be compared to containers, to kitchen utensils such as pitchers and bowls. This comparison emphasizes the functionality of the package and highlights the process of using it rather than the artifact per se. A third possibility would be seeing the package as a sculpture, disregarding the functionality and the graphical information, and concentrating the analysis on the three-dimensionality and material and texture of the package. The book, the utensil and the sculpture have been productive metaphors underlying the current work, although I do not use them explicitly in the text.

The three metafunctions are the fundamental concepts of social semiotics (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006). The ideational metafunction refers to representation, which packages are capable of through several modes, through imagery as well as through physical form and tactile qualities. An example is the soft drink Orangina that comes in a bulbous, transparent bottle with a granular texture that is reminiscent of the texture of orange peel. Altogether, the orange colour of the drink, the form of the bottle and the texture represent an orange.

Packages appeal to consumers through tactile qualities. However, written statements are also a common way of performing the interpersonal metafunction, of creating a relation between the sender and the receiver of a message. Packages form part of a commercial context, where they are designed to reach out to potential buyers. The textual metafunction, how several signs are combined to form a whole, can also be illustrated by the Orangina example. The brand name and the image of the peel on the label can be added to the elements mentioned. The task of the designer is to use all the available resources of packaging and merge them into a whole that makes sense to the consumer.

Images can have both representational and interactive meanings, and these can be described through three principles of compositions, which also have a bearing on packages. Information value pertains to the position of an element, at the top or bottom, to the left or right, etc. Salience denotes how elements are made to attract attention by means of size, placement, sharpness, etc. Framing can show how elements are connected, by the use of lines and other framing devices (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 177).

Another concept I will use in relation to the case about greenwashing below is modality, which concerns the reliability and truth value of images and other statements (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 155). There are regulations that prevent producers from giving false claims about their products, but hints through visual design do not count as claims.

Methodology

The methodology used for this article was a combination of visual and material analysis of artefacts, interviews, observations and media analyses. My working process can be described as zooming in and out of the picture, taking the following zoom levels as a point of departure for methodological choice: separate elements on the package (images, texts), the package as a whole (the shape, relations of elements), and the package in context and use (shop, home, print advertisements, blogs), zooming out from the smallest entity of analysis to the largest and back again.

The knowledge domain acquisition (Haddington, 2001) included interviewing 10 purchasing managers, brand managers and marketing directors in the food retail industry. In order to gain a broader knowledge of the industry, four study visits at packaging manufacturers were made. Questions concerning marketing aspects, the choice of packaging materials and logistics were posed. To understand the designer’s perspective, the handbook Packaging Design (Klimchuk and Krasovec, 2006) was used as a reference and interviews were carried out with packaging designers and managers at five design bureaus. Questions regarding design choices and the balance between customers’ demands and cost and logistics were discussed during these interviews. Insights in the discourse around packaging can be gained from studying print advertisements, TV commercials, producers’ home pages and food blogs maintained by consumers. The advantage of studying internet material is that conversations between consumers and food producers are sometimes shared on a website, something that does not occur in traditional mass media.

To examine the artefacts themselves, a reference collection of packages was gathered. This collection has made it possible to compare and analyse visual and material qualities of packages and discover their specific characteristics, by using and consuming the content as well as observing the packages visually and examining their tactile qualities. Different kinds of comparisons were made: putting several milk packages side by side, or milk packages side by side with juice packages, etc. In a collection, the packages are taken out of context and, in order to study them in their ‘natural habitats’, I made participant observations in shops and recycling centres.

Three Topics of Special Pertinence to Packaging

During the project, I identified three topics that display sign-making of special pertinence to packaging and that support my argument that transformation and displacement of signs and codes are a salient feature of the medium of packaging. The topics are connected to each other by an environmental theme and related to the different zoom levels mentioned above, starting at the level of the single, graphical element and proceeding to the process of using a package.

The Semiotic Modes and Resources Used in Packaging

The resources and modes used in packaging are mainly the same as in other printed media. Klimchuk and Krasovec (2006: 84) identify the following design-oriented elements: ‘colors, imagery, characters, illustrations, graphic devices, photographs (noninformational), symbols (noninformational), icons and visual hierarchy’. The list of key elements of packaging compiled by Ampuero and Vila (2006: 102) consists of colour, typography, shapes and images. Based on these lists and my own observations I have made the following brief inventory.

Imagery

The ‘hero shot’, a picture of the product commonly placed on the front panel of a package, fulfils an ideational metafunction by telling the consumer what the product inside the package is like. The origin of the food and serving suggestions are popular themes in packaging imagery. A can of crushed tomatoes might feature an Italian landscape or a plate with pasta and tomato sauce. Furthermore, there are graphic devices in the form of abstract lines and shapes, which can suggest speed and dynamics. Decorative elements can convey meaning (Van Leeuwen, 2011a), as can the choice of medium for representation. An old sepia-toned photograph of the founder’s family connotes the long traditions of the business.

The package must both protect and present the product, which is a dilemma for packaging designers (Cochoy, 2000). Many foods are degraded by light. Using dark wine bottles, for instance, is a compromise that allows the consumer to discern the wine and at the same time protect it from too much light. Less sensitive dry foods are sometimes packed in a carton with a transparent window, which is more expensive than a plain carton. The window can instead be created with the help of the art technique trompe l’œil, frequently used in ceiling painting in baroque architecture to increase the impression of height and depth. GoGreen makes use of this technique to suggest a hole from which seeds are coming out and which seem to allow the inspection of the inside of the package (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Trompe l’œil effect on Go Green package.

On one level, this imagery represents the product, but on another level it also represents transparency and availability, trying to make consumer overlook the fact that the package prevents them from entering into direct contact with the product.

Symbols and icons

Symbols, logotypes, labels, stamps, pictograms, and violators can be regarded as a subgroup of imagery (Figure 2). However, in packaging these play such an important role that they deserve a section of their own. Labels and stamps have long been used to stress the quality of the product, for instance medals awarded beer brands at fairs and competitions. Pictograms such as the Tidyman (Figure 4) are used to explain how to use or how to dispose of the product, whereas violators are attention seeking labels with messages such as ‘New’ or ‘Improved formula’. These labels ‘violate’ the rest of the design (Klimchuk and Krasovec, 2006: 134) and they use the trompe l’œil technique mentioned above, as they often appear as real stickers, adding a three dimensional quality to the smooth surface of the package. The claims of the violators need not be very precise; a package of bread featuring an encircled heart can signify that the product is good for the heart, but the form of a heart carries positive connotations in general, which may make the consumer more sympathetic towards the product.

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Figure 2.

Three symbols: Scan violator, Swedish organic food label KRAV and symbol for gluten free food.

Multimodal Combinations of Elements

None of the elements introduced above can operate on their own. The medium of packaging can exist in several constellations with semiotic modes. Text cannot exist without typography, which in its turn is reliant on colour. A symbol is a kind of image, but is often combined with text. The graphic imagery is not always presented on a flat surface, but has to be adapted to the shape of the package in order to be perceived and understood. Furthermore, the total experience of a product and its package involves the auditory sense. The sound of a cork being pulled out of wine bottle is an integral part of drinking wine.

Multimodality can be explained by analysing an instance of the trompe l’œil tag on an Arla sour milk package (Figure 3). The type of package is a Tetra top, which has a carton body and a plastic top. It combines squareness with round shapes and can be seen both as a box and a bottle. The graphic design emphasises its ‘bottleness’ by including a paper tag hung around the neck in a hemp string.

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Figure 3.

Arla sour milk in Tetra top package.

The tag and the string appear to cast shadows and protrude from the surface, thereby giving the consumer an impulse to touch the package. The package thus fulfils the interpersonal metafunction, trying to enter into a relation with the observer. If consumers reach out for the package on the shelf, their tactile sense will inform them that the surface is flat and that the package fits well in the hand. The tag can also be seen as a typographical device as it provides framing for important information. The tag places the information in the foreground, thus giving it salience (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2006: 177). Written text, such as the product name, the text ‘organic’ and some romantic copy – ‘completely natural’ – are emphasised by appearing on the tag, as well as the brand logo, the Arla cow. The overall imagery includes berries, flowers and bees, and a lightly clouded sky, evoking the feeling of a Swedish summer day. Through these representations, the package fulfils the ideational metafunction. Some of the issues regarding how packages perform the textual metafunction will be treated in the following section.

Maintaining the Whole

The challenge for a designer is to explore all the resources and merge them into a whole. With all the disparate requirements demanded of a package, many messages compete for the limited space and the final result can give a fragmented impression. In an interview, Kerstin Dahl, managing director of the design agency Idego, pointed out that a design needs to take future changes into consideration from the start and allow for flexibility. This means that space has to be reserved for information about upcoming campaigns, competitions and jubilees. She also stated that the package is the best medium for reaching all the way into the consumer’s home, and it is easier to produce than an advertisement (Dahl, 2010). During the lifetime of a package design, new labels, images and texts are added continuously due to regulations or marketing demands. Regular reviews of the overall design are therefore made in order to keep it up to date and relevant, according to art director Andreas Kittel (2009). Although these alterations may be imperceptible to consumers, without them the package would appear unbalanced or out of fashion.

A vital aspect to consider when creating a coherent design is visual hierarchy (Klimchuk and Krasovec, 2006). Not all panels are of equal weight: the front panel is the most important part of the package, but the side panels and the back of the container are also part of the whole. When clients engage a design bureau to design only the front panel, while leaving the other panels to their own in-house graphic designers, it can be difficult to maintain the unity of the package design (Kittel, 2009).

How the package is perceived also depends on how the product is placed in the shop. For packages placed on a low shelf, the top panel is the first surface that meets the eye of the consumer. This is the reason why the logotype is commonly placed on the cap, for instance on beer bottles. The special priority of the consumer also influences the attention given to different parts. The analytic tools of social semiotics, such as given – left, new – right, can still be applied to certain parts of the package, such as the front panel, but the analysis is complicated by the fact that there is a multiplicity of physical structures and many different ways in which a package can be read.

In the following sections, the signifying potential of the resources, the transformation of signs and codes and the complex relationships between them will be further explored.

Specific Packaging Symbols

The following examples have been chosen to illustrate how required elements relegated to the back of a package strive to achieve more salience and higher information value. Ethical food needs to present itself as such in marketing, but it cannot rely solely on this quality. Too much morality can be an obstacle that has to be overcome in marketing the products to a wider circle than the already convinced. One option is to use humour and self-irony as a vital part of the marketing strategy. The Swedish fair-trade brand Eguale presents the following copy on a chocolate package:

Hemligheten med Eguale ligger i de få, men exotiska råvarorna. Chokladen tillverkas av finaste kakao från Bolivia samt fullrörsocker från Filippinerna. Dessutom oumbärliga ingredienser i form av ekologi och rättvisa.

The secret of Eguale lies in the few, but exotic ingredients. The chocolate is produced from the finest cocoa from Bolivia, and whole cane sugar from the Philippines. In addition, essential ingredients in the form of ecology and justice. (author’s translation)

In the same vein, the British brand Equal Exchange markets a peanut butter that claims to be ‘high in moral fibre’.

These examples show how the border between the required information and the romance copy can be transgressed. In the following, I will discuss how symbols and barcodes can be used in a similar way. While retaining the same placement, by being transformed from purely useful, informational signs into entertaining and attention catching signs, they manage to turn the back panel into a second front.

The Tidyman symbol (Figure 4) was conceived in the USA and made use of in the campaign Keep Britain Tidy in the 1970s (History of the Tidyman, nd). It is still widely used in packaging, often in combination with other internationally recognised symbols such as the universal recycling symbol, based on the Möbius band, and the green dot (Figure 5).

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Figure 4.

Original Tidyman and the new version of Tidyman.

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Figure 5.

The universal recycling symbol and the green dot.

While the Tidyman reminds the consumer not to create litter, the recycling symbol means that the material is recyclable, and the green dot that the manufacturer of the product contributes to the cost of recycling of the packaging materials. What these symbols have in common is that they require people to take some action, which is expressed through dynamic imagery. The original Tidyman is made up of diagonal lines, his body is bent over and appears to be in motion, and the paper is flying in the air (see Figure 4a). What is represented is the act of throwing. The new Tidyman appears static in comparison, standing beside a bin in which litter has been thrown (Figure 4b). The recycling symbols achieve dynamics by making use of arrows and bands that twist and appear to be in motion. All three symbols have been the source of many variations, especially the Tidyman (see Figures 6 and 7), who has a blog and a Facebook group devoted to him.

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Figure 6.

Tidyman variations: Walkers Max, Powerade and Lilt.

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Figure 7.

Tidyman on Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum.

Why has the Tidyman been the object of so much transformation? Unlike most other packaging symbols, the Tidyman is an animate being, who lends himself to being adapted to different products and their packages. He is performing an action, which can be modified and integrated into different contexts and form part of a rebus, such as the Wrigley’s chewing gum.

The company Brand Stand markets Oloves, a brand of olive snacks packed in aluminium pouches. ² On the front panel (Figure 8), a heart formed by two olives held together by a ribbon indicates that the theme for the product is love. There are several varieties of Oloves and the colour of the ribbon differs with the varieties. On the left-hand side on the back of the package of the Tasty Mediterranean variety, a pastiche of a personal advertisement can be found, encircled by a green line:

Tasty little mediterranean seeks companion for bags of fun & laughter. Easy going, loves sunshine & the outdoor life. Doesn’t want to be left on the shelf. Take me firmly in hand & show me you love me.

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Figure 8.

Oloves package, front and back, and Tidyman with girlfriend (4 x 6 mm).

Then, on the upper right corner on the same side of the package, the Tidyman enters the scene. However, this time he is not alone, but in the company of a girlfriend, kissing as they perform the task of throwing litter together in a bin. This indicates that the personal advertisement was successful and that the story has a happy ending.

The package design of Oloves contains a narrative of love based on the name, Oloves, and the image of heart-olives, the personal advertisement and the Tidyman symbol. Different resources, text, imagery and symbols are used for telling the story. Readers must find the way through the story themselves, although the conventional front-to-back, left-to-right reading order is maintained.

All three metafunctions are involved. The package performs the interpersonal function by speaking to the consumer in the advertisement, thereby resorting to anthropomorphism. The resources used rely on the visual sense, but the tactile sense is referred to in the advertisement when the consumer is encouraged to hold the package: ‘Take me firmly in hand’. The way the story involves both sides of the package contributes to the textual metafunction, making the package into a whole. The two sides are also kept together by the use of the same colour for the ribbon on the front panel and the line that encircles the personal advertisement on the back panel. The imagery on the package performs the ideational metafunction, representing love, at the same time as it retains its original meaning. The olives on the front are still a ‘hero shot’, an informative image of the product, and the Tidyman still demands that the consumer disposes of the package in a responsible way. Another level of meaning has been added, without erasing the first level.

A similar use has been made of the barcode, introduced in the retailing industry in the 1970s in order to speed up the check-out procedure. These machine-readable codes, that in the beginning looked awkward and alien on especially smaller packages, are now sometimes fully integrated into the design, without losing their scannability. ³ The two examples in Figure 9 elucidate the function and the context of the products. The Buddha-figure on the Yogi tea package is practising yoga and the family on the OLW crisps package is sitting in the sofa together, probably on a Friday night, when many Swedish families spend the evening together, usually in front of the TV eating snacks.

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Figure 9.

Barcode transformations: Yogi tea and OLW crisps (OLW/Identity Works).

Tweaking barcodes is not a phenomenon restricted to packaging design, but can rather be seen as a subgenre in visual culture. The artist Banksy has used it in his graffiti works and the artist Scott Blake has integrated barcode scanning in his video installations. ⁴ Barcodes are interesting signs, ubiquitous yet unobtrusive reminders of industrialisation. By transforming them into human readable signs they are made less alien, but at the same time more attention is drawn to them. This alters the visual hierarchy that normally prevails in packaging, where the back is considered less important from a marketing perspective than the front panel. The information value of an element is usually considered to be determined by its placement, but the barcode cases show that the opposite is also conceivable, that the placement can obtain value by the elements that are positioned there.

Greenwashing

Organic, fair-trade and locally produced food belong to a wider category known as ‘ethical food’, where special attention is paid to issues of health, the environment and the working conditions of the producers. These qualities are not evident from the products themselves but need to be verified by certification schemes and labelling on the packages. However, most producers strive to signal the ethical character of their product through the whole package design, using semiotic resources such as colour, typography, imagery and material. Some manufacturers take advantage of the credibility of organic food and try to appear greener than they are, by using a vocabulary referring to nature and imitating the design of organic product packaging, which is often green and decorated with vegetable motifs. How the different semiotic resources are used in such greenwashing can be illustrated by the chewing gum V6 Origins (Figure 10), which it is based on natural flavourings and does not contain preservatives.

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Figure 10.

V6 Origins chewing gum package.

Many sugar-free chewing gums use a white and blue colour scheme, often in combination with silver metallic, connoting cleanliness and the clinical effect of fluoride. The V6 Origins deviates from this convention by using a green–brown colour scheme. The mint leaves and the sub brand ‘Origins’ are green, and the background is light brown. The only white area is to be found in the logotype V6 itself. The bag is made of plastic, but the lightly striped brown background gives it the look of unbleached paper, a material that was emblematic of the environmental movement and the protest against harmful bleaching agents in Sweden in the 1980s. The brownish paper came to signify ‘environmentally friendly’, and changed the negative connotations of the brown colour from dirt to the more positive connotations of down-to-earth.

The text on the package contains the word ‘natural’ (twice), ‘green’ and ‘origins’. The first two words are frequent in organic marketing, and being able to trace the origin of the food is a vital issue in the ethical food trade. However, the main semiotic function of the last word is that it can easily be misread as ‘organic’, an interpretation that the manufacturer probably does not mind. The typography of the sub-brand is characterised by soft, rounded forms, in a style typical of the 1970s, the decade when the environmental movement gained momentum. Typography is not only rich in connotations and metaphors, but can also fulfil the ideational metafunction (Van Leeuwen, 2006). Here, the typography involves plant iconography – the descender of the letter g has the form of a sprout which continues into a liana that embraces an oval with the text ‘natural extract’. The imagery of the package further includes leaves with dew drops, and a chewing gum that is shown in cross section. The background can be seen to be a visual representation of unbleached paper, although when felt, the cool, smooth surface reveals itself as plastic. This is yet another instance of the use of the trompe l’œil effect in packaging, combining visual and tactile modalities. It is also an interesting constellation of a mode and a medium, where an image depicts the material of the package. In sum, the V6 Origins package is like a sample card of the signifiers commonly used in the marketing of organic food. Rather than a transformation of signs, this can be seen as an appropriation of a code and borrowing of the connotations from a certain field. It is a question of modality, making a statement about the world that is more or less credible and reliable, and it can be difficult for the consumer to assess whether the visual statement is actually true.

Closure and Materiality

Closure is an important feature of packaging, with several layers of meaning. How the physical structure can play a vital role in the process of signification can be illustrated by the gable top package that used to be opened by folding back the flaps on the top. In 2006, the plastic screw cap was introduced to the Swedish dairy market, with the main argument being that there was a consumer demand for a re-sealable and thus more convenient package (Figure 11).

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Figure 11.

Arla milk package with plastic screw cap.

Increasing the amount of plastic has an undeniable adverse environmental effect (Wallman and Nilsson, 2011), which certain groups of consumers reacted against. For this reason, most milk producers have chosen to sell their organic variety in a package without a screw cap. Newspaper articles pointed out the double standards of the dairy companies, pretending to care about the environment at the same time as they added more plastic to the packaging (Ahlborg, 2010). Several consumer bloggers reacted in the same way (e.g. Biggles Filosoferar, 2008; Ett liv utan plast, 2010). Beverage cartons such as the gable top package are paper packages that contain a thin, hardly perceptible plastic laminate. The plastic screw cap draws attention to the plastic component of the package and disturbs the paper – plastic dichotomy, where paper places itself on the environmentally friendly side being a renewable material, and plastic on the environmentally harmful side. The usual power of beverage cartons to signify environmental friendliness, emphasised not least in the marketing by carton producers, decreases. The screw cap has become a source of contention between different consumer groups and producers. It forms part of the green marketing discourse and shows that ‘green’ can be signified, not only by leaves and flowers, but also by the absence of an attribute, such as the plastic screw cap. In contrast to graphic design elements, the screw cap is a physical element that cannot just be moved to a position with less information value. Its salience remains, and it is easier to remove the plastic cap than to give it positive environmental connotations.

Although there are many practical and functional arguments for and against different closure solutions, the emotional aspect is not negligible. The beer producer Carlsberg introduced a plastic bottle in the beginning of the 2000s that did not become a success with the consumers. The plastic screw cap was not sufficiently tight, and more importantly, the package lacked certain attributes associated with beer drinking (Ölflaska, 2009). The new version (Figure 12), launched in 2009, has the same metal crown cap used on glass bottles, which allows for the usual ritual of opening a beer bottle: taking out the bottle opener, performing the opening twist that requires a little force and listening to the hissing sound when the cap pops off.

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Figure 12.

The Carlsberg plastic beer bottle with crown cap.

In the wine trade, the natural cork is the traditional closure and inseparable from the procedure of drinking wine. The metal screw cap was previously used only for wine of lesser quality, but recent research has shown that a screw cap protects wine from oxidation better than cork (Silva et al., 2011). Another advantage is that cork taint is avoided. Prestigious wine producers now market wine with screw caps, which is likely to contribute to changing screw cap connotations from budget to exclusive. Cap producer Stelvin has designed a cap without visible threads that looks similar to a cork with metal foil. This might make the transition easier, although the ritual of pulling out the cork is lost.

Closure is part of the material structure and a semiotic resource with as much potential as other resources. It makes the consumer enter into a relationship with the package, thereby performing the interpersonal metafunction to a higher extent than most other resources. The rituals connected with closure and opening are embodied signs (Kress, 2010: 76–77) and involve several senses. Drinking out of bottles involves the gustatory sense as well as the visual, aural and tactile senses.

A single closure type, such as the screw cap, cannot be regarded as a single sign with a uniform meaning. On the contrary, it can have very different meanings depending on the context, and these meanings can be strengthened, modified or completely reversed, as the examples above have shown. Before the screw cap was introduced in the dairy market, the classic gable top closure was seen as neutral. Now, it has been loaded with green connotations and signifies resistance to the environmentally harmful plastic screw cap. Plastic beer bottles are lighter than glass bottles and do not produce the same clinking sound when handled. In spite of these differences, the crown cap has the power of retaining the meaning of the new bottles as beer bottles. The traditional wine bottle opening ritual, however established, seems to be able to relinquish its power of signifying wine drinking in favour of the screw cap, in exchange for a higher and more reliable wine quality.

Being Good but not Boring

Sustainability can be practised in many different ways. It can involve, for instance, consuming organic food, disposing of litter in the proper way or using environmentally friendly packaging. However, there are several problems and pitfalls in the communication and marketing of the good, fair and wholesome. The code developed for designing organic food packaging can be imitated by producers who want to take advantage of the organic trend. The main problem is how to balance morality and succeed in reaching out to consumers who are not already ‘converted’. Marketing often resorts to humour and self-irony, as the examples of Equal Exchange peanut butter and Eguale chocolate show. In both examples, the technique of the pastiche is used to imitate the style of two ‘literary genres’ specific to packaging, the ingredients list and nutrition facts.

Oloves is a healthy snack, but this message is rather low key, printed in a small font size on the front panel. Primarily, the package communicates fun and playfulness instead of presenting accounts of the positive health effects of olives. The Tidyman is so well-known that it is on the verge of becoming invisible. ⁵ When it is made to look like a cartoon character, consumers will perhaps be motivated to examine the packages closer, and be more receptive to the message. Even Yogi tea takes a self-ironic stance when adding a Buddha practising yoga on top of a barcode. There is humour in the clash between the ancient Indian practice and our efficiency seeking modern world. By making this change to the barcode, Yogi tea is both reclaiming space from the technocratic society and admitting to be part of it, as the company operates on a mass market.

Discussion of the Theoretic Framework

I have examined packaging through the lens of social semiotics, and at the same time I have examined the framework of social semiotics through the lens of packaging. Some limitations of the framework have been found, and I will conclude by discussing these and suggesting additions.

Conclusion

My study has demonstrated that the transformation of signs and codes occurs in response to challenges in the food market, whether they concern appealing to the young generation, following regulations or responding to a growing organic market. Knowledge of the workings of these transformations can be of equal use to designers and to consumers. I have further shown that the complexity of packaging necessitates a multi-methodological approach.

The limited space of the food package leads to a competition where different types of messages try to claim territory from each other. The designers use different strategies to define the package as a whole, and to make it possible for the consumer to apprehend the package in its entirety, not just as a carrier of fragmented messages. To this end, all modes and resources must be used, graphical, textual and material. To be able to read packages requires a comprehension of packaging as a context where rule-changing creativity is at play.