September 14, 2020

A Graphic Designer Is Relabeling Canned Food With Calls for Justice

If you live in Texas or know someone who does, look twice—or have them look twice—before reaching for that jar of peanut butter or can of soup, cranberries, or ground coffee. And definitely that tin of Spam, container of salt, and jar of mayo. A San Antonio artist has been sneaking around to supermarkets and relabeling food in an act of creative consumer disobedience. Jars and containers are popping up on shelves with parody labels bearing call-to-action political messages, and the labels are virtually indistinguishable from the originals. You’d be forgiven for mistaking them until you get home, when your astute, label-reading housemate makes the fool of you.

“One of my San Antonio friends has been using his graphic design skillz to re-label grocery store cans with facts about local/national police issues,” tweeted the artist’s friend, who hasn’t named the artist, but the friend, with permission, has made the labels available as PDFs: “Want to bring this revolution to your grocery aisle? He’s made the label files public.”

See the photos here and here. Enjoy your Ocean Spray Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce, or, if you’re looking, Priorities San Antonio Just Added $8.1 Million to the Police Budget Cranberry Sauce.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

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