Medicine bottles are stupid and dumb. So are regulatory traffic signs, remote controls, cell phone interfaces, and the flushing mechanisms in toilets. Occasionally designers are hired to make them beautiful and dumb. Once in a blue moon, designers get it right. The new Target medicine bottle is one of those brilliant designs which make so much sense everyone must now be wondering why medicine bottles weren’t always like that. It is also great-looking, not through styling but as a result of good old form-follows-function clarity. Designed by Deborah Adler, an SVA student (who now works for Milton Glaser), as her thesis project, the new bottle sits cap downward to provide a large flat surface for clear graphics, features a pull-out card for personal and cautionary information, and is provided with changeable color-coded neck rings to distinguish drugs intended for different family members. Why is it so difficult for manufacturers to apply this kind of common-sense good design to all of those other infuriating objects that constantly frustrate us?
4 replies on “New Target Pill Bottle”
I like the pill bottle. It seems very well thought out. Is the cap child-proof? The most infuriating charicteristic of many drugs dispensers is their similarity. The drug company adopts a certain colour or label design and uses it for all drugs, making it very difficult to tell drugs apart. I wrote to Baxter once about this, they did not reply……outraged …Dulwich
That’s an interesting tweak on this idea, to have perhaps a series of large-scale symbols on the labels indicating at least the group of drugs. Perhaps a separate bottle shape could be reserved for a certain age group of children.
My mother takes MANY ‘scripts a day which always concerned me. She was always scared she would make a mistake. Now, I worry much less, and she feels much more confident. I am very happy about this design. I would also like to say my mother switched from CVS pharmacy to Target, and the drug costs were LITERALLY cut in half. She was spending well over a thousand dollars a month. Now, she can afford her meds and a trip to the movies with her Grandkids… thanks Target!
These Target bottles are stupid! You store them upside down and the lid doesn’t seem to close well. So, it’s 90 pill pick up every so often!!!