John Maeda's blog
Bigfoot Greetings
Creating and ordering my greeting cards online was easy, but the layers of packaging make me wonder if I've damaged the earth in the process.
John Maeda 04/21/2008
- 2 Comments
With a simple flick of the wrist and click of a button, I ordered my custom-printed cards from Apple. Not very many, really--only 50 total. A few days later, they arrived in two cardboard boxes. I opened one of the boxes, and inside there was another box. I opened that box, and found yet another box. Finally, after opening the last box, I found a bundle of cards. I felt as though I was playing with a Matryoshka doll. The sad part of it, however, was that all the layers of packaging were going to end up in the recycling bin. Did there have to be so many?
On the right is the pile of printed cards and envelopes; on the left is the pile of packaging material. I'm fearful of calculating the carbon footprint of my greeting cards ...
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Erica Naone
70 Comments
The experience of Apple packaging
In my experience, the packaging around an Apple product is designed to make opening that product feel like opening jewelry. This seems to require a certain quantity of packaging. It'd be interesting to think about how to create that same feeling of unveiling a very precious object with a minimum of materials.
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