Parody is flattery, and it is always fun to have fun at the expense of established brand names. Wacky Packages have been around since the 60’s with most of the artwork being conceived by Jay Lynch. Last year, a new series of the parody cards was released, the first new series since 1991. Distributed by Topps, the new cards are good for a few chuckles and so is the Wacky Package website complete with Flash based games. For more history on Wacky Packages, check out wackypackages.org and check out the best of gallery.

I would like to share a few examples of bad packaging that I have encountered over the last month. Some big names (Starburst, Hershey’s and Buger King ) and a no name (Dr. J. H. McClean’s Volcanic Oil).

The above Starburst packaging is in my opinion the worst of the bunch. What color do you think of when you hear the name Starburst? Yellow I would assume. I have purposefully taken a side shot of this package to show how much red the average shopper will see. The designers of this packaging apparently never went to Walmart and saw all of the Starburst stacked with hardly a spot of yellow showing. I now know that the new packaging is mainly red and I still have a hard time finding it in the candy aisle.

Probably having more to do with a documentary than with wanting to actually do good, the design of the box I was eating fries from had a slight change from my last visit. For those more frequent shoppers, this is something you most likely noticed a while back, as it was introduced during the olympics.

As designers, it should be our job to visually communicate ideas and information. Adding nutritional information to my fry container is what I consider an effective use of the space. As much as I like what Burger King has been doing by adding funny sayings to their packaging, McDonald’s has clearly won this round, and will most likely be copied by the other chains shortly… I hope.

It should be noted that they did forget to remind the vegetarians out their that the fries still contain beef extract.

This is just what Red Bull wants me to do, but oh well. It appears that Red Bull is coming out with a new cola. It isn’t in stores yet, so we will just have to imagine what it is like from their website.

My criticism: Do we need more cola? I heard a stat that said you are twice as likely to get diabetes if you drink one soda every day. The idea of something from Red Bull being “not too sweet” seems a little funny as well.

On the up side, I like the idea of everything being natural. Cola without phosphoric acid and preservatives has to be a good thing, right? We will just have to wait until it comes to a convenience store near you. The real question … . Will it also be ridiculously expensive?

So I will join in the hype. Mainly I wanted to point out the cool pull tab (err … pop top). That and maybe they will send our in-house team a case for ourselves.