An exhibition in NYC

Marc Benhamou chose to interpret the 22 cards of the tarot’s Major Arcana with a theme of beauty

With each new box the black box project grows. Latest exhibition to date of the black box and its content: the one held at the Milk Studio in New York, last month. On this occasion, the designer, Marc Benhamou, chose to revisit the 22 first cards of the Tarot - the Major Arcana - using the theme of Beauty. Brigitte Reiss-Andersen achieved the make-up of the models.

How to determine what is at the core of something as elusive as beauty? I have worked for many years in the beauty industry and this is a question that has been puzzling me over and over again,” emphasised Marc Benhamou, a French designer based in North America and also the fourth designer who accepted Iggesund’s challenge to create a Black Box with an advanced design and an original content. "Art has the magical power to change life in beauty. This Major Arcana deck is dedicated to these connections. From the most complex and mysterious game, We searched for visual simplicity, leaving your imagination entering the cosmos and your soul looking for knowledge."

After Europe, the USA

This Black Box operation is a story that dates back to November 2010. The first designers to accept the challenge were the packaging specialists in cosmetics and fragrances at Paris-based agency Landor and then the maestro of printing techniques, Frans van Heertum of Tilburg in the Netherlands.

Free spirits at Landor did what designers so often do, explains Guy Mallinson, Marketing Director for Iggesund, namely to break all the rules for the commission right from the start. Their contribution is called Virtually Real and is based on the concept that everything we produce can be broken down into pixels. So they thought: why not produce a pixel that people can use to build something with? The result was a Black Box containing a single pixel. The box didn’t create much excitement until it became clear that the creative minds at Landor had not just thought outside the box - they’d also blown it to smithereens."

In addition to the box, Landor’s contribution consisted of four works of art, each made up of 4,900 physical pixels, resulting in four pictures, each 3 x 3 metres in size.

In contrast to Landor’s concept-driven contribution, that of van Heertum Design was clearly technology driven. "Frans van Heertum, the company’s grand old man, adds Guy Mallinson, is all but legendary in the graphics industry for pushing the boundaries of what is possible. He happily combines gravure, offset and screen printing and then adds 34 printing inks and a multitude of varnishes. As if that weren’t enough, he also likes to integrate Swarovski crystals into his design. He is a multiple winner of the Golden Cylinder honorary award from the American Gravure Printing Association."

On opening van Heertum’s black box, whose design is based on Dutch identity, one discovers a highly intricate laser cut construction made from a single sheet of paperboard. The box also contains a number of cards that display a variety of various printing and finishing techniques - ones that most printers and designers can only dream of achieving.

As for Andrea Brunazzi of Brunazzi & Associati in Torino, Italy, has created a black box that is the ultimate in Italian style. His solution is a survival kit for pasta lovers. The complete ready meal is packed and placed in Invercote Bio and the packaging ultimately functions as a pasta strainer.

"The next black box will be presented this autumn in Hamburg," explained Carlo Einarsson, head of communications for Iggesund Paperboard.