New design of Kodak film boxes

[warden]

It seems that Kodak had changed recently the design of their film boxes:



I suppose a decision made by Kodak Alaris, who is responsible for marketing, distribution and sales of all Kodak photo films.

Hm, honestly I am not convinced by this move: Some boxes look quite boring, much too simple in their design. And the Ektar box looks.......like the worst film box outfit of the last decades for me. I liked the former one much much more.

I am not an expert in industrial cardbord printing process: But could it be that this new, much simpler design with less different colours and less elements is just cheaper in production?
Saving 1-3 cent per box sums up by the millions of boxes made each year.

Great film. Terrible graphics.

 

[miha]

The new Ektar packaging is butt-ugly. The previous one was dull. The ancient one from the late 80s oozed cutting-edge technology and emotion:

(scan courtesy Voxphoto)

 

[Don_ih]

Ektar - the Choice of Demons!

 

[warden]

The new Ektar packaging is butt-ugly. The previous one was dull. The ancient one from the late 80s oozed cutting-edge technology and emotion:


View attachment 377572

(scan courtesy Voxphoto)

reminds me of Tron!

 

[pentaxuser]

The new Ektar packaging is butt-ugly. The previous one was dull. The ancient one from the late 80s oozed cutting-edge technology and emotion:


View attachment 377572

(scan courtesy Voxphoto)

A bit like me and my late eighties suit

pentaxuser

 

[miha]

A bit like me and my late eighties suit

pentaxuser

You must have been a dapper young man

 

[cerber0s]

As longvas the film inside is good they can ship it in brown paper towels as far as I’m concerned. The box gets smashed and thrown in the garbage bis as soon as the film is removed anyway.

 

[loccdor]

The new Ektar packaging is butt-ugly. The previous one was dull. The ancient one from the late 80s oozed cutting-edge technology and emotion:


View attachment 377572

(scan courtesy Voxphoto)

Yes. I made a little tribute to it earlier this year:

 

[lenspeeper]

It seems that Kodak had changed recently the design of their film boxes:



I suppose a decision made by Kodak Alaris, who is responsible for marketing, distribution and sales of all Kodak photo films.

Hm, honestly I am not convinced by this move: Some boxes look quite boring, much too simple in their design. And the Ektar box looks.......like the worst film box outfit of the last decades for me. I liked the former one much much more.

I am not an expert in industrial cardbord printing process: But could it be that this new, much simpler design with less different colours and less elements is just cheaper in production?
Saving 1-3 cent per box sums up by the millions of boxes made each year.

I read that Alaris was sold. Probably the new owner wanted to have a new box design.

 

[koraks]

Has the sale of Alaris closed yet? This smacks of growth initiatives.

I read that Alaris was sold. Probably the new owner wanted to have a new box design.

Way too early to be related to that. The box design would have been in the making long before the ownership changed.

 

[MattKing]

I can say with a fairly high level of confidence that the United Kingdom Pension Protection Fund - who were the owners of the shares in Kodak Alaris - never paid much attention to how the boxes look.
And I sincerely doubt that the venture capital fund that now owns those shares will be paying attention either.

 

[cmacd123]

Perhaps they are going after the "bring back Panatomic-X" crowd ......
View attachment 377529

Kodak had a traditional colour code almost over the years Panatomic Brown, Plus X Purple, and Tri-X green.

and yes on the other point about international production -besides just the changed information on the bottom (Kodak Canada, Kodak Limited, Kodak AG ...) their were subtible differences. I recall when the Stright edge Drawn Aluminum cans were used, the Kodak logo was surounded by a different shape outline between the british Film and the US film. the same device was used on Super 8 - although for a while they had moved all the super 8 to France until they closed Kodak Pathe.

 

[cmacd123]

OH, and I did get some Ultramax in thenew style package last month, so that was before the takeover was anounced.

 

[MattKing]

Kodak had a traditional colour code almost over the years Panatomic Brown, Plus X Purple, and Tri-X green.

and yes on the other point about international production -besides just the changed information on the bottom (Kodak Canada, Kodak Limited, Kodak AG ...) their were subtible differences. I recall when the Stright edge Drawn Aluminum cans were used, the Kodak logo was surounded by a different shape outline between the british Film and the US film. the same device was used on Super 8 - although for a while they had moved all the super 8 to France until they closed Kodak Pathe.

One of the challenges that Canadian Kodak (as it was then known) had to deal with was fitting on to the box all the information - in both English and French!

 

[mshchem]

I remember when B&H was buying from Kodak (USA) and at least a couple other international Kodak companies. There was Kodak w/pro points, foreign spooled w USA coated films, Kodak fully made overseas..... EKCo USA would try to scare people that the imported stuff had been mistreated etc.

 

[cmacd123]

One of the challenges that Canadian Kodak (as it was then known) had to deal with was fitting on to the box all the information - in both English and French!

I recall, one end being in English and one end in French, and tha sam for the side panels., Pelecule Noir et Blanc - the botton just had develop before/Develope Avant and EM which would be a short form for both the english and french. And Kodak Canada Inc. was acceptable for both lanuge. fortunatly those rules were phased in over a few years and so the manufcatures had t adjust.

One thing I noticed with new design we are talking out is that the number of words is severally reduced, and I suspect that they did that so they could sell the same packs in different markets, without mulatiple lines of words.the EU wants french, German, Italian and Spanish, (and still expects English ever after BREXIT) Canada needs english and french, some of the boxes I got a couple of years ago also had Greek. (although that may have indicted grey market) Compare the number of translations on HP5 for example.

 

[cmacd123]

I remember when B&H was buying from Kodak (USA) and at least a couple other international Kodak companies. There was Kodak w/pro points, foreign spooled w USA coated films, Kodak fully made overseas..... EKCo USA would try to scare people that the imported stuff had been mistreated etc.

Place I worked in the 70s did sell some grey market stuff fron Kodak Limited. importer was a montral company that most was a tobac distributor. I wish I had of Bought more as the british cassettes were still re loadable at the time. One day the buyer visted and said - here is mr X from Kodak, we are now going to ONLY get film from Kodak. I wondered if they sugested that he might not be able to get Kodak Cameras on the seasonal deals.

 

[MattKing]

Place I worked in the 70s did sell some grey market stuff fron Kodak Limited. importer was a montral company that most was a tobac distributor. I wish I had of Bought more as the british cassettes were still re loadable at the time. One day the buyer visted and said - here is mr X from Kodak, we are now going to ONLY get film from Kodak. I wondered if they sugested that he might not be able to get Kodak Cameras on the seasonal deals.

You were probably working for a Kodak dealer. If they lost that status, they would have lost dealer favoured pricing, plus access to Kodak Lab dealer processing services, which may have included pick-up and delivery.

 

[mshchem]

Back in the day Kodak protected their dealer network. For a lot of very good reasons. When Fujifilm started selling directly to big users, Kodak followed. I remember when, if a photoshop also did portrait and wedding work, the shop was prohibited from selling many retail items.

Everyone stayed in their lane (so to speak)

 

[Mick Fagan]

Back in the day Kodak protected their dealer network. For a lot of very good reasons. When Fujifilm started selling directly to big users, Kodak followed. I remember when, if a photoshop also did portrait and wedding work, the shop was prohibited from selling many retail items.

Everyone stayed in their lane (so to speak)

I'm not too sure about that. I started working in the graphic arts industry in 1975, which is 49 years ago. Back then Kodak, Ilford and DuPont were selling direct to big users, which we were.

Around 1980 Fuji approached us to supply direct. As we never used Fuji material to my knowledge, I'm presuming either they were too expensive, or their range of available photographic material was too small. Most likely their range of material was too small.

 

[mshchem]

I'm not too sure about that. I started working in the graphic arts industry in 1975, which is 49 years ago. Back then Kodak, Ilford and DuPont were selling direct to big users, which we were.

Around 1980 Fuji approached us to supply direct. As we never used Fuji material to my knowledge, I'm presuming either they were too expensive, or their range of available photographic material was too small. Most likely their range of material was too small.

Yes, Kodak Graphic Arts division was something that I was never "exposed to".

Completely different from the Kodak Pro dealers for professional still films.

Of course if the big catalog, magazine houses in Chicago and NYC were going through 1000's of sheets of Ektachrome and black and white in a day I have no idea how that worked.

Kodak was amazing.

 

[MattKing]

My Dad was a Customer Service manager in a Kodak Canada lab, but that department was actually part of the marketing division.
The Graphic Arts sales people were regular guests at our place for dinner, because many of them were "on the road", and often appreciated a good home cooked meal when they were out on the west coast.
Their experiences, and that marketplace were very different from the retail market.
Same went for the sales group that supported microfilm, and commercial labs, and motion picture film - all separate dealer and marketing structures.
They all had different catalogues, and a retail store dealer could not order (normally) a graphic arts product.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Actually we also had multiple B&W and Colour professional still film places, as you've called them. The amount of product photography we were doing was almost beyond belief, not to mention studio photography from living breathing models, automobiles, through to full sized semi-trailer trucks and everything in-between, then there was also our architectural photography business; you get the idea.

Product photography was probably the biggest user of conventional colour transparency film. Every catalogue for Kmart, Target and others, was usually crammed with pictures of everything listed. All of those individual items needed to be photographed on film, then a colour stat was made (Positive colour print to the actual catalogue image size) These colour stats were pasted up by hand and each page was then photographed by a camera using four (or five) single B&W sheets of film with various screens at various angles to allow a 4 colour printer to print the catalogue. Absolutely huge industry and pretty much the goldmine for companies like Kodak.

Kodak, Ilford and all of the others served us directly, and we weren't the only ones with a direct Kodak, Ilford or Fuji account.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Same went for the sales group that supported microfilm, and commercial labs, and motion picture film - all separate dealer and marketing structures.
They all had different catalogues, and a retail store dealer could not order (normally) a graphic arts product.

Interesting one there Matt.

After I left the graphic arts area, I started another business and I needed lithographic film, I visited my local retail photography shop and was able to order Kodak, Agfa, Ilford and Fuji graphic film stock. My situation was way too small for an account with any of the manufacturer suppliers directly, so I just enquired at my local photo shop and away I went for the next 15 years until I went electronic. This was 1991-2.

 

[eli griggs]

A s

I don't see anything that would make these cheaper to print than the old ones. It's still standard high volume 4 color offset printing.

I suspect trying to save 1 cent per box in printing cost will be a very, very tall order.

The brown color on the Ektar box really is quite...yuck. I'm with you in that the previous/present design is just much nicer.

A Strong, waxed cardboard cylinder, inside a three face 'box' would allow most of not all data that needs conveying to be printed on the inside box walls, which could be designed to unfold into a card stock, three page pamphlet.

It would also be easy enough to provide photography how too's, camera histories and recommendations for buying old film kit, etc, by way of a second three/six faced pamphlet, coupon, tip sheet, folded to snuggly fit inside the box sides.

I'd like to see a return of printed data, including "Sunny 16" charts, returned to produce packaging's, which, at the prices being charged for mainstream film brands like Ilford, Kodak, Fuji, etc, make buyers better informed, entertained, and interested in analog photography.

Cheers