Design Your Own Kleenex Box Photo Frame
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 02.13.07
Via USA Today , Kimberly Clark Corporation has a website where you can upload your photos and purchase oval-shaped Kleenex boxes with the images printed on the sides. First analogous object that comes to mind? Those Grecian urns with the erotically posed human figures dancing around the edge. The more innovative we get, the more things stay the same. USA reports:- “… the brand is embracing personalized products. In a world where consumers can customize their Nike shoes, M&M candies and even their Heinz ketchup labels, the Kleenex box is jumping into the fray” Cost is $4.99 plus shipping. Per company policy, no hate messages, violence, nudity or unapproved company trademarks. So much for my Grecian urn idea. Before you jump to a comment, please qave a look at our questions, pros, and cons list, below the fold.
Pros:1. Everyone gets to be a product designer: a corollary to Andy Wahol’s 10 minutes of fame!
2. Nice get well gift.
3. Excellent political gag medium- many opportunities for culture jamming.
4. Likely to evolve as an on-line design medium, providing the equivalent function of the bumber sticker.
5. If you can’t afford a proper urn for cremation ash….
6. More cost effective than a “digital frame.”
7. Because they are keepsakes, recycling not an issue.
Cons:
1. Some owners may chose not to open them: a waste of resources.2. Adornment with culturally inappropriate imagery may lead to unexpected social turmoil and possibly backlash against the brand, which means that the order-taker is put in the position of being the “Kleenex Censor.” He/she has to be alert to new fads and cultural innovations. Pehaps KC will have to encourage the order takers to permanently run Boing Boing in an open Window.
3. Image quality likely to be poor.
Questions:
1. Refillable with tissues?
2. Card stock of archival quality, for storing chemical photo prints inside?
3. Right size to hold mini-DVD’s as used in digital cameras?
4. Will company offer waterproof liners so spent boxes can be used as flower pot?
5. Yet another opportunity to resurrect Elvis?
Image credit: excerpt from Wikimedia Commons.
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- GHG Photos: Climate Change Photography Shapes Debate
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i am not sure why you are posting an article that seems to be promoting the company the has received so much criticism recently... and deservedly so. how 'treehugger' is this post?
Treehugger... i have been with you and loved you since the beginning but there has been a real drop in the standard of you articles over recent months... it is very sad. great new look to the website but since you introduced it your content has suffered.
In response to Anon,: even "bad" companies can innovate and end up doing good things. We write about GE and Walmart, for example, in the same way we did about KC, and in spite of any alleged ongoing or previous mis-deeds. The purpose of this post was to elicit from our readers whether they thought this new product offering was good or bad from an environmental standpoint, or whether they were uncertain.
As an aside, a value judgement over the relative goodness or badness of KC as a tissue maker comes down to the fact that soft toilet and facial tissues are a very small percent recycled fiber -- the public prefers soft vigin fiber for wiping their butts and noses at home. Conversely, the stiff stuff you'll encounter in nearly every hotel and public washroom is around 80% recycled.
If you want things to get better in the boreal forest, regardless of which company makes the tissue, then help change the market. Buy the crispy toilet paper and cheap tissues as I do. You'll save money that way a well. And, convince your friends and relatives to do the same. Consumer preferences are a powerful force to enlist.
Pros and cons list not withstanding, there is no green angle on this product. Refillable would have been redeeming.
This product is simply a grab at the wedding market (and christenings, etc.)
I think customizable tissues boxes are a complete waste...unless you decided to reuse the cardboard afterward. Who REALLY needs personalized tissue boxes?? You take a tissue, blow your nose, throw it out. Are people that sad that they need the cardboard they're probably going to toss to have their pictures on it? Come on!
On an aside, YOU can turn the cardboard of the tissue box into a picture frame, for FREE! I even made a Valentines Day card out of it! Use the oval or cut a different shape, slap a picture behind, and use the sides of the box as stands. Presto! An awesome way to reuse that lovely tissue box cardboard.
You can check out my card here if you want ideas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/63094030@N00/383629506/
You've got to be joking.
Kleenex, the company that cuts down old growth forests to make tissues and toilet paper (http://www.kleercut.net/en/), printing on boxes not made from recycled paper using toxic inks, and shipping individual boxes to customers creating even more greenhouse gases.
What in this story is possbily "good" for the environment?
=== author's response follows ====
If you were the product manager for this specific service, what things would you propose be done to green the product line? Who knows, maybe someone from KC is looking for constructive ideas?
Incidentals: - Cardstock (used to make boxes) typically contains a high percentage of recycled fiber. Do you happen to have a reference as to your ink toxicity claim?
I'm shocked that you would psot this given the company refuses to stop using lumber from Canada's old forests. Kill 1000 year old trees for a product you use for 5 seconds. For the sake of our planet, buy a hanky. Preferably a used one or one from Organic cotton.
=== author's reponse follows ====
For the record, over 80% of the forest cutting in Canada is for lumber and much of the chips and scraps from that are used to make paper pulp. If boreal forest conservation is an objective we can all agree on, and I assume that is the case, then blaming a relatively small part of the supply chain for the cutting is not going to have much positive effect. We first have to get at the markets for all that timber. That includes the four walls around each and every one of us.
Glue sticks and ten minutes can get you a personalized tissue box filled with whatever kind of tissues meet your particular ethical criteria.
Get the kids involved, have fun, reuse materials, be engaged, waste not.