Studio Minerva co-founder Silas Amos on the cigarette packs that got him hooked

Following this week’s news that plain cigarette packaging could be introduced in England as soon as next year, Studio Minerva co-founder and creative strategy lead Silas Amos tells us about the designs that made his relationship with smoking “always equally one with the branding.”

News regarding legislation for plain packaged cigarettes in England feels like a positive thing for society. If one believes that good branding can help a product to sell more, then it logically follows that de-branding will make smoking less attractive, particularly amongst youngsters yet to take up the habit.

However, if one takes an amoral vantage point, cigarettes can boast some of the strongest design and communication of the past century. I’ve smoked more than my share over the years, and I know de-branding would have worked on me, because it was the branding that lured me in in the first place. Here are some examples of the work that got me hooked…

Player’s Navy Cut; the design that made me think smoking would put hairs on my chest.

I’m not a sailor and I never smoked Player’s Navy Cut. But I remember being fascinated by an antique sign bearing “Hero” as a nipper. It’s one of those brands that still seems to be everywhere whilst being sold virtually nowhere. The powerful iconography of such brands started weaving its spell long before one was ready to actually take up the habit.

B&H; the advertising that made me think smoking was clever.

Still at an impressionable age, the surreal B&H ads that graced the back of the Sunday supplements took me to another world. They featured clever concepts, model-making and photographic craftsmanship of the “old school.” I went on to work on the brand as the “market went dark,” but packaging alone could never hit the highs of the 70s and 80s advertising output from CDP.

Gauloises or Gitanes; The packs that made me feel French.

As a trainee smoker I made the schoolboy error of assuming that puffing on one of these would give me an air of Left Bank Gallic sophistication. Whilst the helpless coughing fits that ensued suggested otherwise, there was no denying the classic allure of the packaging. The Gauloises logo was signed “Jacno.” I wondered who he was. I wanted to become a designer, and create something even half as cool-looking myself.

Laika; The design that overcame all reason.

On a mid-80s trip to Russia I bought a pack of Laika. The cigarettes themselves inverted the usual filter/tobacco ratio, with a long empty stick of rough card capped with a tightly packed end of snout that smelled of dung. But no worries, the packaging was so retro-cool and so damn Russian that they just had to be sampled. Once tried, never forgotten. A good example of packaging that was far superior to the product it carried.

Lucky Stike, The design that burned its way into my retinas.

The Lucky Strike packaging was originally designed in 1917 – consider how incredibly modern its simplicity was for that era. The story of how Raymond Loewy made a bet $50,000 with the president of American Tobacco that he could improve it is a classic piece of design folklore. He swapped the green pack for white, amping up the colour contrast, and put the logo on both sides of the carton (“to be seen by twice as many people”). Worked on me, as a way of buying into quintessential Americana (when I wasn’t playing at being French). The soft pack, obviously, was the only way to go. Although in all honesty I spent the 90s mainlining Marlboro lights, just like every other designer/smoker I knew.

I think my relationship with smoking was always equally one with the branding. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t clever, but much of the design work was. I imagine there are kids around today just as gullible as I was then, and I hope the new legislation protects them from being seduced into such a lethal habit. But I can’t help but have a nostalgic affection and unhealthy respect for the brands I revered as a callow youth.