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This article has been published in: Ocula 22, Be cool. How a Cultural Icon is Born

author: Ilaria Ventura Bordenca (Dipartimento Culture e Società, Università degli studi di Palermo (IT))

Can Packaging be a Cultural Icon? Processes of Meaning and Intertextual Mechanisms

language: italian

abstract: This paper analyses product packaging as cultural icons that condense and spread socio-cultural values. Some global brand’s packs became unmistakable signs of those brands (take the contour bottle of Coca-Cola or the Nutella jar) but also objects able to communicate consumption values, cultural habits and collective usages. Through the analysis of some case studies from the fields of branding and marketing, this paper aims at investigating the semiotic processes that transform packaging from commercial and common objects to cultural icons. The main idea is that intermedial translations and interdiscoursive migrations are the fundamental mechanisms involved in this processes of iconization (with specific packaging items moving from the field of branding to those of arts, music, movies, design, fashion).

citation information: Ilaria Ventura Bordenca, Il packaging come icona culturale? Processi di significazione e meccanismi intertestuali, "Ocula", vol.21, n.22, pp.287-312, April 2020. DOI: 10.12977/ocula2020-20

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