Packaging
- Build the flat first. Cut, crease and glue flap at true size; a label drawn to wrap the actual bottle, tin or jar.
- Put on what the law required that year. Contents by weight or volume in the units of the country; the maker’s line; duty stamps and bands; for tobacco, the warning of the year — none, a line of text, a boxed text, a photograph across most of the face.
- Leave off what did not exist. Bar codes belong to the mid-1970s on; recycling marks, nutrition panels and web addresses each have a first year.
- Print it the way it was printed. Two or three inks and a paper label before the war; full-colour offset and foil later.
Studios: Label · Pack ·
Pharmacy · research: packaging, labels.
Newspapers
- Choose the format and the column count. Broadsheet, tabloid or berliner, and how many columns the paper ran in that decade.
- Invent the masthead. A real title needs permission; an invented one in the manner of its country and year does not.
- Set real text. Justified body copy, headline type of the period, a date line and a price in the year’s money — an insert will read it.
- Screen the pictures. Halftones at the coarse ruling of newsprint; colour on the front page only once the presses had it.
- Age it by its use. Fresh from the stand, folded in a pocket, or yellowed from an archive.
Studio: Newspaper Press · research: newspapers.
Signage
- Find the regime. Road, rail and safety signs follow the standard in force: the shape, the colour and the alphabet change on known dates.
- Choose the plate. Vitreous enamel, painted steel, cast metal, reflective sheeting, cut vinyl — each has its years and its way of wearing.
- Letter it as a signwriter or a factory would. Hand-painted fascias have a brush in them; a stencilled notice has bridges.
- Never draw a registered device. A transit roundel or a route shield is somebody’s mark; an invented one in the same manner is not.
Studio: Sign Shop · research: signage.
One firm across all three
When the label, the advertisement in the paper and the sign over the shop belong to the same invented company, set it up once and
carry it — see how to create a fictional company for film.