When Mucha gives you a box of biscuits

Mucha was a regular artist for Lefèvre-Utile, the major French biscuit company founded in Nantes in 1846. He designed publicity posters and calendars for them and in 1896 was the first artist to utilise the company’s initials ‘LU’ as a decorative motif with his design for the advertising calendar for 1897. Around 1900 Mucha’s task was expanded to packaging design, which included labels, box tops and the decoration of biscuit tins.

For Mucha, packaging design meant the decoration of objects (products) by applying art to their forms in order to enhance their charm and character. Therefore, as he wrote later, he thought that art should serve as a language to the object to be decorated. This idea is demonstrated in the message carried by the biscuit boxes: the moment of happiness and comfort, as illustrated in the insets, as well as the quality of the products, which is enhanced by the box decorated with the borders emphasising solidity and dignity. Also Mucha produced a ‘brand’ with the use of a consistent font, logo and decorative formula, which linked the packaging with the publicity.

http://muchafoundation.org/en/gallery/themes/theme/packaging-design/object/56