The Egg Nog Project - A Kitschy Collection of Cartons From All Over The Country.

Seattle, Washington based Graphic Designer Madeleine Eiche began her fascination with Egg Nog cartons when she was working at a New York Coffee Shop back in 2002.  The kitschy packaging of Canastota's Egg Nog, coupled with her love of pop-art and her fondness for dairy products, inspired Madeline to begin an on-going collection of store bought egg nog cartons from all over the country.

She says "The peculiarities of the packaging range from festive to banal, minimal to unappetizing, and each seem to be printed with complete disregard for color alignment. It is precisely these things that make for such compelling kitsch."


above: the carton that started it all, Dairy Fresh, Canastota, New York

The majority of the cartons are so ugly, I'd hesitate to even call them 'kitsch.' However when viewed together they certainly represent the annual tradition as well as a facet of retail packaging category in sore need of redesign, with a few exceptions.

Guers Dairy, Pottsville, Pennsylvania:


Marcus Dairy, Danbury, Connecticut:


Derle Farms, Jamaica, New York:


Guida-Seibert Dairy, New Britain, Connecticut:


Dairyworld Foods, Vancouver, British Columbia CANADA:


Lucerne Foods, Pleasanton, California (2):



Faith Dairy, Tacoma, Washington:


Umpqua Dairy, Roseburg, Oregon:


Elmhurst Dairy, Roxbury, New York:


Wengerts Dairy for Swiss Premium, Lebanon, Pennsylvania:


Dean's Dairy, Sharpsville, Pennsylvania (2):



Crowley Foods, Binghamton, New York:


Giant, Landover, Maryland:


Tuscan Brand, Franklin, Massachusetts:


Schneider's Dairy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:


Parmalat Dairy, Toronto, Ontario CANADA:


Mountain Dairy Inter-American Products, Cincinnati, Ohio:


Swiss Premium Dairy, Lebanon, Pennsylvania:


Smith Dairy, Orrville, Ohio (2):



America's Choice, Montvale, New Jersey:


Wilcox Farms, Roy, Washington (2):



Turkey Hill Dairy, Conestoga, Pennsylvania:


Rockview Farms, Downey, California:


Lehigh Valley Dairy, Lansdale, Pennsylvania:


Horizon Organic, Boulder, Colorado:


Garelick Farms, Franklin, Massachusetts:


Organic Valley, La Farge, Wisconsin:


Southern Comfort, Lynnfield, Massachusetts:


Southern Comfort (Vanilla), Chelsea, Massachusetts:


Trader Joe's, Monrovia, California:


Silk, Boulder, Colorado:


Originally from Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, Madeleine Eiche is a graphic designer whose other collections include push puppets and floaty pens. Find her work at eiche.co.uk.

Photos by Justin Gollmer.

The Egg Nog Project

Meet Amy J. Rowan aka Art School Girl

Who is Amy J. Rowan? Well, she's the imaginative force behind Art School Girl.

I stumbled upon Amy's work while browsing an online card store and was immediately drawn to not only the charming indie look of her vintage-fabric-on-cardstock cards, but the fact that she took the odd tradition of adding "in bed" to one's chinese cookie fortune and turned them into actual cards (see below):



So, I 'googled' her and found her site, filled with objects of fun and whimsy.

Below are two examples of her hand-crafted one of a kind stationery on her self-proclaimed favorite brown cardstock:




You can order a sampler of her items (as shown below):



She makes everything from hand sewn bookmarks.....:



Journals and notebooks made with recyclables she's cleverly named reNEWed:




Taken from her own "about us" page:
Art School Girl's origins can be traced back to owner, Amy Rowan's days as a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was there that she constructed what would be the first of several stationery lines—a simple blank journal made from recycled books. Fueled by a passion for paper and a love for specialty printing processes, Art School Girl specializes in one-of-a-kind hand made paper goods. Expertly crafted from recycled materials and often sewn or printed by hand, each piece is artisan quality.

She even sells 'art, some creations of vintage imagery on old index cards:




See all her fun products here.