LIKE JAMES LILEKS, I DO THE SHOPPING (and, usually, the cooking) for our household, and I keep seeing this stuff in the dairy aisle. And it bothers me. “Dew Fresh” is a fine name — but for margarine that by its nature never got close to a single drop of dew, unless you count condensation on a refrigeration line at the plant where it was made, this seems a bit much. Who are they kidding?
I also like the way it’s wrapped in wax paper for that crude, handmade-by-struggling-dairy-farmers look, too. And that’s a flower there between “Dew” and “Fresh,” though the first time I glanced at it I thought it was an atom, which somehow would have been just surreal enough to work.
I wonder — was there a design meeting where guys with spiky hair weighed the different possibilities? Hmm. What should it be: Foil for a futuristic look? A fake stone crock made of plastic? A squeeze tube? — Until one guy suddenly had an inspiration and exclaimed, “Wax paper! Crudely printed wax paper! That’s the look we’re going for!” And everyone else gasped in amazement, and he was promoted to Executive Creative Director for Margarine.
Lileks could get a whole essay out of this. All I got was a post. Well, that’s the difference between us.