The Idiocy of a Numbers Game

     

There is a madness created by the mischief caused by engineers and marketers who are obsessed with numbers. 

It's good that they don't name their children the same way they identify their products. 

As if the buying public could possibly remember their numbering systems. 

Perhaps, if we gave a damn about numbers.

I mentioned this yesterday during an interview, so you can imagine my glee when I came across this dialogue today in which one instant photo buff tries to explain which film may be used with which camera model. 

"Polaroid 600 cameras take 600 film and 660 cameras take 600 film and 779 film.

"Polaroid 664, 667 and 669 are not integral film, which means they can't be used with 600 cameras because they are peel-apart films that can only be used with 100 cameras. . . . .

"Type 100 is a peel-apart film and won't work with 600 cameras [and] Type 690 is an SX-70 film but isn't compatible with 600 series cameras. . . ."

It's why I keep insisting that what I did was product identity. 

Package design, on the other hand, can simply be the mindless pursuit of scribbling incoherent numbers and information all over a box.

Caveat emptor.