Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

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MManchester
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Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby MManchester » September 25th, 2014, 7:20 pm

Image

Image

From Gizmodo:

That's why 3M created its Scotch-brand tape that's nearly invisible, and a selling point that Hamburg-based ad agency Kolle Rebbe perfectly drove home with this clever packaging for the product that looks like a completely empty box.


The packaging won an award.

http://gizmodo.com/brilliant-packaging- ... 1639110896
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Richard Kaufman
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Richard Kaufman » September 25th, 2014, 7:57 pm

It's a great idea, but a pity the illusion is exposed when you open the top and use the product.
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby MManchester » September 25th, 2014, 8:27 pm

But imagine all the children who receive the empty box as a toy and use it to vanish small objects. Perhaps this first exposure to illusion will create a lifelong interest in magic and encourage them to learn more.
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby erdnasephile » September 25th, 2014, 8:35 pm

It's clever, but I think there would have been other ways to construct that box so as not to expose the angled mirror principle (which I assume is what is going on here). For example, a false back would have given a similar illusion.

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby lybrary » September 25th, 2014, 8:52 pm

I think this is brilliant indeed. The angled mirror is such an age old idea that one can hardly call this exposure. Great thinking that I think will inspire.
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby mrgoat » September 26th, 2014, 3:42 am

Ha. That is wonderful.

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 26th, 2014, 8:09 am

The tape box design makes good use of the green plaid. Any timeframe for finding those packages on the shelf?

More subtle though perhaps magical as well - a clock with no apparent hands
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Rick Ruhl » September 28th, 2014, 12:19 am

Quoting Jim Steinmeyer..

"Magicians guard an empty safe. There are few secrets that they possess which are beyond a gradeschool science class, little technology more complex than a rubber band, a square of black fabric or a length of thread."

I think we'll be ok with tape in a mirror box.

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Leonard Hevia » September 28th, 2014, 12:28 am

Rick Ruhl wrote:Quoting Jim Steinmeyer..

"Magicians guard an empty safe. There are few secrets that they possess which are beyond a gradeschool science class, little technology more complex than a rubber band, a square of black fabric or a length of thread."

I think we'll be ok with tape in a mirror box.


You got that right Rick. One of my first magic books as a kid was Will Dexter's 131 Magic Tricks for Amateurs. It describes this principle and I built a small cardboard mirrored box from the illustrated description.

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 28th, 2014, 5:12 pm

He may write that the safe is empty but for some reason Steinmeyer and others want protection for their work.

so is the safe empty?
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Leonard Hevia » September 28th, 2014, 7:05 pm

Jonathan Townsend wrote:He may write that the safe is empty but for some reason Steinmeyer and others want protection for their work.

so is the safe empty?


You got that right too Jonathan.

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 29th, 2014, 1:06 pm

Mundus vult decipi -per Caleb Carr's story Killing Time

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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby lybrary » September 29th, 2014, 2:31 pm



And this my friends is essentially the principle of Lubor Fiedler's Lubor Lens. In his early notes which are published in an old issue of the German Zauberkunst magazine the resemblance is even closer. Lenses are being used to bend the rays around the item that you want to hide.

Now I wonder if I should contact the professors and give them the news that a Czech inventor beat them to it by about 60 years :-)
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Tom Moore » September 30th, 2014, 3:37 am

He may write that the safe is empty but for some reason Steinmeyer and others want protection for their work.

so is the safe empty?


I fear you're confusing protection of their work and protection of the secrets. Protecting trade secrets so that others don't copy them thus putting you out of a job (and/or just generally completely misunderstanding the technology to the extent that you ruin its use by everyone) is a completely different thing to protecting the secrets of magic itself.
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Jonathan Townsend » September 30th, 2014, 9:41 am

if it's a trade secret then we're back with the safe - with detailed data as to how to make a thing work properly being the item guarded.

so is the safe empty?
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby Tom Moore » September 30th, 2014, 2:44 pm

Do i /really/ need to explain the difference between trade secrets (construction techniques, materials, artwork, dimensions) which have nothing specifically to do with the magic itself are fundamentally different to "magic" secrets?

A flying carpet is being held up by "invisible" strings (that's a magic secret) the complicated mechanical systems required to support that string, enable the carpet to move naturally, light up, move silently along a metal track and turn loop-the-loops are all trade secrets with nothing at all to do with magic secrets. I've no problem with people knowing / saying that one of my flying carpets is held up by "invisible" strings because (as Jim puts so succinctly) a high-school-student can work that out for themselves. If someone comes backstage with a tape-measure and starts measuring all my stabilising mechanisms or any of the other things I've created though hundreds (or thousands) of hours of research & experience then I'm going to get grumpy about it because by taking trade secrets they're directly, specifically putting me out of business.

The quote is spot on - the secrets that magician's obsess about keeping are an empty safe; Penn & Teller take this observation to its logical conclusion by only exposing effects where the exposure is more interesting than the magic / non exposure would be.
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Re: Illusion used for packaging of clear tape

Postby MManchester » October 8th, 2014, 12:37 pm

I contacted Scotch hoping to get information about the product's availability, but they didn't reply. Then I e-mailed the ad agency Kolle Rebbe to see if they would be more forthcoming. I received this brief reply from Thomas Stritz, their press staff:

Thank you for your mail and thank you for sharing the magic tape on Genii. There are not so many further details we could provide. Together with our client 3M Germany we have launched a special edition which is sold out already. Budgets for the next (and hopefully bigger edition) are in discussions. We are quite optimistic it and hope to get the magic tape in stores again round about in spring 2015.


It doesn't sound like this is going to be available in North America. This is the kind of situation where I wish there was a mini-doc about its development. Does someone on staff have a magic background or did they scour available books at the library? How many different prototypes were created, etc?
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