Soup Can
This past week I decided to be creative and design my own soup can. Okay, first off you should understand that it wasn’t the tin-coated steel container itself because my initial idea of pouring soup into the husk of a half eaten grapefruit was claimed by some in the soup industry to be both unhygienic and slightly less than airtight. No, what I actually created was labelling for said soup can. Not that the can could say anything you understand, but I had been genetically engineering grapefruit to vocalise their genetically modified turmoil So if the powers that be had green lit the grapefruit as a can idea then may be the containers would be at least moaning or screaming if not talking.
As my art skills are a less than just a little bit limited I didn’t want to go for a straight reproduction (where does the pollen go?) I decided to use photography. Alright, I know what you are thinking:
“Matt, even though I love you and God forbid we were stuck together in some remote frozen wilderness without supplies I would gladly kill you with a heavy rock, slice you open and crawl inside your flabby body to protect me from the harsh climate that without a doubt would have devoured us both. Getting back to my point, Matt I didn’t think that people from the north of England would be smart enough to diversify their portfolio from flat caps and whippets to buy a device that could capture a brief moment in time.”
To that I say, that’s way too much information and remind me to kill you first should we found ourselves atop a snowy peak. Secondly, that is kind of regionist. Moving beyond that, you be right. I don’t have a camera (and neither does my whippet), so I decided to “borrow” an image that I found. At this point I should tell you that this image wasn’t of me (though if it were, I would have spent more time hunched over it – studying) this was a photo of someone else (which you should have picked up when I wrote words that paraphrased “not me.”) For reasons of modesty, shyness and anonymity (mine, I assure you) Marcie of 34 Morecambe Crescent, Dudley, UK was the subject of the photograph.
Now that I had the photograph all that was left to do was to come up with something amazingly expressive that would astound the critics and would capture the hearts and minds of those naive enough to follow me (which to be honest isn’t that many people, yet) and place them in an ornate wooden, yet completely waterproof, box positioned on my mantelpiece.
Sadly, after a brain-storming session, which involved little more than placing my head under a faucet (though it may have been more productive to turn the water on) no ideas had dripped out. It was then that I decided to ape that mysterious artist: Building Society – he’s a little like Banksy but garners less interest – but then realised it was a little late in the day to get hold of a dozen rhesus monkeys with the ability to make the perfect chicken nuggets, especially since the local high street closed several hours earlier (at 5pm to those of you wishing to have an exact timing).You should already know it isn’t hard to get monkeys to make simply adequate chicken nuggets, but there is always a problem with the breadcrumb coating, which is always disappointing and the quality of the chicken they source is always less than you would normally desire. This doesn’t really have anything to do with the soup can itself so you probably could have skipped it and not missed much from the general narrative.
So once again, I sat at my desk with the photo and a blank canvas before me and I was feeling quite tired so I decided to invoke the computer magic to help me create a soup can label. It was amazing. Unfortunately for you dear reader, I no longer have the can in my possession (because it wasn’t my can in the first place) so I can’t show you the finished article. In any case even if I did still have access to the can I’m sure that it would roll off the scanner, so until they invent a soup can shaped scanner you will just have to make do with a poor artist rendering, so if you want my genius all over your cans just look at the instructions, download the PDF and follow the directions.
You will need:
1) A Computer
2) Electricity
3) Paper
4) Sticky Tape
5) Printer
6) Pen
7) Scissors
8) A grown-up to help you.
Instructions
1) Power up your computer, if you haven’t already done so.
2) Connect to the Internet
3) Navigate to http://ilovemattfishwick.com
4) Read the blog post.
5) Look at what you will need
6) Follow the instructions
7) Open the PDF (if you haven’t already got Adobe Reader, get it here)
8) Print off the PDF using some sort of Printer. If you haven’t got a printer handy I suggest that you hold the paper to the screen alter the contrast and trace the image using a pen.
9) Wrap the paper around the soup can (use no other type of can, because that would be wrong)
10) Use scissors to trim any excess paper
11) Get a grown-up to buy you alcohol
12) Sit back, drink and complain that the outcome wasn’t worth the effort.
Do not eat the contents of the can, because now you won’t know what it is.
