Help Me Out Here, People!

Can you see my problem?

I had a new box of one of my favorites, Celestial Seasonings decaffeinated green tea. Opened it up and was greeted with a whiff of peppermint, which surprised me, but I thought maybe it had been stored next to some peppermint tea. (I went on the Celestial Seasonings tour out in Boulder a few years ago, and that's something they try pretty hard to prevent.) So I made a cup and drank it, but it was so minty I didn't enjoy it at all.

I planned to take the box back to the store for a refund, but forgot about it until the next morning. This time when I took the box out of the cupboard I noticed something I had missed before: A blue stripe at the top of the box, with small white type reversed out of it that said "Mint." See it up there?

When you have the two boxes side by side, you can see that there is a slight difference in the illustration (the red area on the left box contrasts with the blue water on the right box). But the overall gestalt of the two illustrations is the same -- the pagoda is the dominant part of the image, and it's the exactly same. The green used on the rest of each package is the same. It's pretty obvious that these two packages are hard to tell apart, despite the fact that Celestial Seasonings hired a prominent branding firm to redo its highly distinctive packaging.

Another company whose products I use probably can't afford to hire an expensive branding firm, and their packaging has the same problem as Celestial Seasonings. Locally owned Parkers peanut butter is stored in the refrigerated case, and it has several varieties to differentiate.

I like creamy peanut butter, and my other half likes crunchy, so we have both in our refrigerator. We have to store them in different locations in the fridge because if we don't, it's all too easy to chow down on the wrong one. It's pretty shocking to take a bite of peanut butter toast and get a mouthful of crunchy peanuts you weren't expecting.


Did you ever notice how similar the words "creamy" and "crunchy" are? There's hardly anything to differentiate the word shapes, and the lettering style used here doesn't help (it's practically unreadable, with its white outline and drop shadow).

The green vs. blue swoosh is pretty low in contrast as well.


It's no better when viewed from the side. Identical set-up of the bowl, peanut butter and spoon, same yellow behind the logo. Only the green vs. blue swoosh and the hard-to-read words to differentiate the two visually.

Well, enough crabbiness for one day, especially about something that's essentially trivial.