The Lowly Receipt, An Opportunity
Point-of-sale receipts are meaningless and will probably go the way of our protoborg pocketdevices. Which is why they are so amazing when they are done well. And an opportunity.
It struck me again when Andrea and I finally made it over to Outerlands for lunch. We arrived just as they opened at 11:00 am and grabbed a little seat outside along 45th Avenue, catching a good 20 minutes of sun before it moved overhead. When Andrea came outside after ordering and showed me the receipt, it made me smile. They only did so much as put their winged mascot on top, but the way the point-of-sale’s line returns printed a bird with IBM stripes, it became a little more distinguished. Later when I got home I wondered about the lives of all those receipts I collect, scraps of recordkeeping that usually end up crumpled in my pocket, transferred to my bedside table and eventually ripped into a hundred little pieces. They are sitting ducks for improvement.
As it turns out, there are some receipts to be celebrated. Below are some of the more interesting examples I’ve seen online, repurposed here as a sort of thumbtack wall to inspire someone down the line. I liked some of the ideas found within Berg’s adventurous and creative redo of the common receipt, but as a whole consider it a little too precious — like something out of an overpriced cupcake shop.
Examples:
Burgerville: Nutritional information for each item (from rynosoft)
Barnes & Noble: Recommended similar purchases (from Travelin’ Librarian)
BP: A Vulcan salute
Nirvana: Hand-drawn cartoons for customers by Brent-Dawg (from MetaGrrrl)
China Cafe: Native characters alongside English text
Loehmann’s: Reiterating perceived value (from thisgirlangie)
Taxicab: A peaceful reminder (from EvilChick)
McDonald’s: Subtle but powerful branding (from Alexweb8, who has a thing for collecting receipts from various point-of-sale machines)
Harvard metalab project: QR codes, quotes (from neutralSurface)
ZEF: receipt as business card (from pointclickenjoy) (UPDATE: mmcgown comes in with this tidbit about our man ZEF: “If you didn’t do it earlier, go here http://zef.so/employable/ and take a look at Zef’s CV. It’s quite imaginative and, not surprisingly, snagged him employment.” Sound on, trust us.)
Maybe Warhol knew what he was doing after all.
