I was looking at my cereal box this morning with the three Rice Krispies guys and, not for the first time, I feel cereals need a big re-think in their design. You’ve got the Rice Krispies, Cheerios and other vintage classics that don’t change all that much which I guess is reasonable (if it ain’t broke..) but all the others have the same tired tropes going on with stupid mascots for kids or emphasizing wellness.
Not sure if this relates to Austin yet. We’ll see.
In school I designed a cereal where consumers submit their creative writing to the cereal’s website, people vote on the submissions, and then they get “published” on the cereal box.
Recently I came upon my physical mock-up I still have when I was packing boxes for our move.
So that’s one idea. Or, how about a line of cereals each with a theme: History Flakes, Science O’s, Civics Mix. Each box has informative articles about the topic. You could interview experts or feature research enterprises, etc.
How about a cereal which features crafts? There could be cut outs on the box itself you cut-out and build into airplanes or dolls, for example. If it were paper dolls you could include paper “clothes” inside the box.
How about Loving Languages cereal? Feature a different language every few months. Learn simple words and phrases.
Back to Rice Krispies and the 3 guys on the box. So I don’t know if they’re little people or what but they’re also 3 white guys. So of course we need more diversity. How about just an entire cereal called Non-Binary? It would be supportive of LBGTQ with information and personal submissions on the box. More on the website. And of course, the cereal itself would probably be rainbow colors. Unless that’s passé? Maybe there’s a more progressive option. Anyway.
Then if you want to be more controversial you just go ahead and have political cereal. So a line of chewy, crunchy bits with rotating design on the box maybe with all points of view of a controversial topic. So one box would have a bunch of concrete blocks covering the front: THE WALL. On the back would be points of view, pro and con. Then you just switch up the content every few months. Maybe consumers could choose the next topic themselves by voting on the website.
Then I wouldn’t need to find supplemental reading every day at breakfast anymore.