Pictured here is label found on Spice Select's "BEEF Flavored BOUILLON CUBES". We shall demonstrate the success of the package's design through an examination and analysis of the complex illustration seen on the front of the label.
The complexity of the label's design lies in its brilliantly devised depiction of several distinct periods of time within a single image. The illustrator has achieved the closest approximation of a moving image (e.g., a television ad) possible with a static, two-dimensional label illustration. The result is a narrative describing the entire process of consuming the bouillon cubes, from start to finish. Unlike a moving image or series of still images (e.g., a multi-panel ad), the bouillon cube illustration simultaneously presents four separate events or states that would normally occur over a period of perhaps ten or more minutes.
The normal preparation of bouillon cubes can be summarized by describing a linear sequence of events; for example: 1) foil removed from cube(s); 2) cube(s) added to preparation vessel; 3) finished gravy mixture added to serving vessel; 4) filled serving vessel garnished and added to table.
However, in the Spice Selects image, these four events occur in the same instant. In the image, three cubes remain in their foil wrappers, representing the state of the cubes after purchase and before consumption; the foil also ascribes a quality of newness to the cubes. However, in spite of being new and unwrapped, the cubes are already being put to use: they are in the process of tumbling (with tremendous speed, incidentally) toward a waiting vessel. But the vessel contains gravy that is already prepared and adding another cube to the mixture would unfavorably alter the taste; adding three would ruin it completely (the depiction of so many cubes, in such close proximity to the jubilant "75 Cubes" claim, is probably meant to evoke the bounty offered by this 10.5 ounce container). It is important to remark that the addition of these cubes to the existing mixture is not being shown as a attempt to improve the flavor of the mixture; note that the vessel is full with no traces of its having even been sampled. Furthermore, the gravy is already in a mug (serving vessel), not a saucepan (preparation vessel); that and the parsley sprig garnish underneath it imply that the gravy has been satisfactorily prepared and that the mug itself has already been presented for use on a dining table.
To attempt to explain this image as a depiction of a single moment would require creating a convoluted backstory. For instance: the consumer prepared some gravy and, apparently satisfied with the result, poured it into a mug; he placed a decorative sprig of parsley on the table and put the full mug on top of it; however, seconds later, the gravy still steaming and unsampled, he somehow determined the gravy was not satisfactorily prepared after all; he decided to add an astonishing three cubes to that 8-ounce mug of gravy (for which quantity just one cube is recommended by the label's instructions) but after removing the cubes from the package, failed to unwrap them; and now, in the image before us, we see the consumer's frenzied act of adding three unwrapped cubes to an already prepared and presented vessel of gravy (probably before the astonished eyes of other dinner guests, as an 8-ounce mug of gravy is too large a quantity to be consumed by the average diner).
Conversely, to regard the image as an overlapping series of separate events gives us a satisfactory result. With one quick glance, we witness the entire process of preparing gravy using Spice Select's product. From the metallic allure of fresh, unwrapped cubes to the promise of the rich flavor offered by the filled and garnished mug, the entire sequence is presented to us at once, which has the added benefit of implying ease and quickness of preparation. We can compare this simultaneous representation of temporally separate events to one of Picasso's Cubist paintings, wherein we might see the subject's face depicted from several different angles at once.
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