The stephanemarais packaging re-utilizes cosmetic containers which are still in production in Shiseido. This strategy allows us to reduce its production costs. From the archives of cosmetic containers placed at my disposal by the company I selected the most linear and regular ones, favoring sections which were very flat or slim in order to emphasize the contrast of the volume.
For the packaging I employed a new technique of adhesive labels in color adjusted by Shiseido to allow the outcome to be very true to the details and the chromatism. The packaging was made of different materials: aluminum, glass, synthetic materials. As image application techniques, silk screen prenting, heat printing of films are taken into consideration. The surface of the stephanemarais_ container is an exposed mini space which gathers the assembly of different visible and transverse languages. It is suitable for stories made for images, a bit like Greek vases.
Every centimeter of the surface of the packaging is exploited to make it a visible story. The composition is done by assembling photographs from archives, contemporaneous ones, illustrations, graphics, texts, reproduction of pictures, electronic images, etc. Every container has its own identity. Images of the packaging are continuously renewed. The reading of icons is left to the interlocutor to find his or her interpretations. In this way the industrial product becomes “goods and means of entertainment”. A small visible rebus. The packaging culture normally tends to emphasize logot