The Paper Bag Archive

Something I really like but haven’t written about before is the excellent Paper Bag Archive, which is devoted to the ‘collection, conservation and celebration of these once ubiquitous items’.

It seems to be a for-profit thing, and a most noble one at that, selling prints, pamphlets and ‘editions’ (vintage bags that have been overprinted with graphics). I’ve bought several of the pamphlets, which are beautifully produced records of specific categories of bags (Food & Drink, Department Stores, that sort of thing).

This project is undoubtedly a labour of love and that’s enough reason in itself to support it. But the Archive is also a magnificent record of a more innocent, analogue time when branding pretty much ended at having a logo, and shopkeepers cared about what they sold. The paper bag is a symbol of all of that, and a clear indication of how far the world of branding and consuming has shifted in the last 20 years or so.