Tiki's on Trader Joe's Shopping Bags

Has anyone noticed?

Trader Joe's shopping bags now feature tikis!
Hawaiian Ku,
PMP Peanut mug tiki
and a well-done artistic tiki!

The local cashier did not know if Trader Joe's staff would wear matching shirts.

I wonder if the artistic Tiki's were done by my friend Marcus Pizzutti? He works in an artist capacity for some of the local Trader Joe stores (in-store art) and is BIG TIME into Tiki. He actually designed & sculpted our Fabulous 4-pack mugs & X-Eyes, too.

California must get those bags first - nothing her in Wisconsin, yet. I was just there on Friday & the bags here are still tiki-free. I look forward to seeing them when they get this far East!

On 2007-03-18 16:05, MakeDaMug wrote:
I wonder if the artistic Tiki's were done by my friend Marcus Pizzutti? He works in an artist capacity for some of the local Trader Joe stores (in-store art) and is BIG TIME into Tiki. He actually designed & sculpted our Fabulous 4-pack mugs & X-Eyes, too.

.

Nope, Marcus is long gone from TJ's. Didn't leave in a good way.

On 2007-03-18 16:48, croe67 wrote:
California must get those bags first - nothing her in Wisconsin, yet. I was just there on Friday & the bags here are still tiki-free. I look forward to seeing them when they get this far East!

I was told they have only been in stores for about 10 days.

On 2007-03-18 17:14, Tiki Diablo wrote:

On 2007-03-18 16:05, MakeDaMug wrote:
I wonder if the artistic Tiki's were done by my friend Marcus Pizzutti? He works in an artist capacity for some of the local Trader Joe stores (in-store art) and is BIG TIME into Tiki. He actually designed & sculpted our Fabulous 4-pack mugs & X-Eyes, too.

.

Nope, Marcus is long gone from TJ's. Didn't leave in a good way.

Didn't leave in a good way................

Did he get abducted from the Mother Ship aka King UFO Kong?????

He's probably getting probed beyond belief right now!!!!

BTW, the two LA confirmed locations are the Santa Monica & Fuller and the Culver City stores.

Hey Ben, his ship came back for him! Marcus is a talented alie... artist.

The Arcadia, Ca., stores had them last week, and the Carmel Mountain store in North County San Diego has them as of the other day.

Anyone got a flatbed scanner large enough to get a good image?

And down here in the 92109.

I'm back in L.A., and my local Trader Joe's gave me my first Tiki grocery bags today :) :

Trader Joe's Burbank has had Tikis on their hand drawn price labels, and Danny Gallardo has carved extensively for T.J.s store in ...the South Bay (?), they are startin' to become more "Tiki" than Trader Vic's! :)

A little Tiki revival history:

Two of the Tikis on the bags, the Ku and the PMP mug, are taken from the House Industries TIKI TYPE font kit, which came out around 1999, and which majorly contributed to the re-introduction of the Tiki image into pop culture.

The icons that accompanied their fonts have since appeared on countless products from greeting cards to MTV books. They were hand-drawn, based on owner Andy Cruz's mug and Coco Joe collections.

I used a modfied version of their "Tiki Island" font on the cover of the BOT, and will use two of their other type faces on the Tiki Modern cover. The Cruz Brothers were early appreciators of Tiki:

They are the rock stars of the hand drawn theme font revival, having toured Europe and Japan as speakers, and have published three magazines and a fine art book of their work. Their latest contribution to the graphic world is called "Burbank":

And the side panel with the tiki holding the torches and the spewing volcano in the background was a clear copy of the art done on bamboo curtains I purchased last year thru Ebay. The current bamboo curtains available thru Ebay have the tiki holding one torch, but the same volcano background and details.

• Myke

On 2007-03-20 15:00, bigbrotiki wrote:
I'm back in L.A., and my local Trader Joe's gave me my first Tiki grocery bags today :) :

Bags of beauty.
I don't think I can go to any other market - unless its after 9 pm.

They look especially nice with a couple bottles of Whaler's Rum and some Ahi steaks sailin' home in em...

With my budget, I'll have to load my bags with "2 Buck Chuck"

http://www.traderjoes.com/product_categories.html#Booze

Guess where the typefaces on their website come from..? :)

I am a die-hard Trader Joe shopper, they got some of that European fare, and for cheap! And when my local Siverlake store is too crowded (now most of the time!), I can always go to my son's school one in Eagle Rock, or to Naomi's in Burbank.

Still have to find out why they discontinued Golden Crackle, though.

Wow, those are pieces of ART !!!

I'm gonna go get some and cut the sides out and hang them up!

On 2007-03-21 19:10, tikiyaki wrote:
Wow, those are pieces of ART !!!

I'm gonna go get some and cut the sides out and hang them up!

That's the first time I've heard anyone wanting to frame a piece of a paper bag, But in all truthfullness....I think I would too.

I don't think that ty was serious here, Pocky. :)

He was making fun of the fact that they are generating so much interest. ART they are not, as they are pre-fab imagery...but they ARE pop art, and since there has been such a slew of BAD Tiki pop art, I feel good examples (applied by good people) deserve to be credited.

Doctored clip art or whatever, I say with no irony that those are terrific looking shopping bags. And they have to cost money, with two inks and separate handles. How refreshing to see a company not provide the absolute cheapest amenities to their customers. Mahalo, Trader Joe's, well done.

On 2007-03-21 23:33, bigbrotiki wrote:
I don't think that ty was serious here, Pocky. :)

He was making fun of the fact that they are generating so much interest. ART they are not, as they are pre-fab imagery...but they ARE pop art, and since there has been such a slew of BAD Tiki pop art, I feel good examples (applied by good people) deserve to be credited.

Au contrair monsieur, I was not kidding.

A little trick I learned from our own Bamboo Ben. About 5 years ago I bought something from his shop. It was a Hawaiian shirt, with a nice palm tree print, glued to a thin piece of wood, then shellacked over, which made it looked aged, then framed in Bamboo.

I may do something similar with the side of these bags...The one side where the tiki is in front of the volcano...no food involved.

Right now they are on display in the Tikiyaki Orchestra room on a shelf.

This is the stupid stuff I think of :o

[ Edited by: tikiyaki 2007-03-22 09:04 ]

[ Edited by: tikiyaki 2007-03-22 09:05 ]

Heck, the very first words out of my husband's mouth when he saw the bags was "If we got enough of these, we could wallpaper our bathroom with them!"

I think he was joking.....

He might not be.

I just saw one of these bags at a friends house down in San Deigo last night,
I figured they would be talked about on here.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

I love the Trader Joe's tiki bags!! How awesome!! Does anyone know if they have made it to the Midwest yet?

On 2007-03-20 15:00, bigbrotiki wrote:
A little Tiki revival history:

Two of the Tikis on the bags, the Ku and the PMP mug, are taken from the House Industries TIKI TYPE font kit, which came out around 1999, and which majorly contributed to the re-introduction of the Tiki image into pop culture.

Bigbro, do you know if that font kit is still available anywhere? I would love to have that!

House Industries still has it in their catalog:

http://www.houseind.com/index.php?page=showfont&category=&id=26#26

It ain't cheap though, they supply the design industry.

You are right, it's not cheap! I guess I'll have to do my lettering the same way my grandpa (a sign-painter) used to, by hand! Thanks anyway!

Your grandpa was a sign painter? You really should check into the House Industries site, and their font kits. That is their credo, they totally idolize the lost art of sign painting and hand lettering.

http://www.houseind.com/index.php?page=showfont&id=23

They have 'em in Novato (NorCal) Let me know if you need any.

Volcano Girl-- You CAN find a great number of Tiki fonts for free on the web-- you will have to sift a lot URLs but a lot of graphics folks free them-- if your not publishing you should be OK!

On 2007-03-23 19:09, bigbrotiki wrote:
Your grandpa was a sign painter? You really should check into the House Industries site, and their font kits. That is their credo, they totally idolize the lost art of sign painting and hand lettering.

http://www.houseind.com/index.php?page=showfont&id=23

This is the tiki page:

http://www.houseind.com/index.php?page=showfont&category=&id=26#26

I am happy to report that the Trader Joe's in Alameda, CA (just about a mile from Forbidden Island) has these wonderful bags, and now, so do I!!

Came home from a busy weekend of surf shows, and dog sitting at my Bro in laws hose to see a Trader Joes tiki bag on the dining room table for me. very cool indeed.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

The bags have already made it to Massachusetts... Local TJ's in Burlington, Mass was kind enough to search out a few for me!

Tikisgrl

I love the array of Tiki, ones a Hawaiian god, ones a Paul Marshall Mug, and the other just an American Idol.

The Trader Joe's in Redlands just got the bags in, and they also tikified the store a little. Sorry the pictures are kinda crappy, the store was really busy. I love that they named the check stands, i.e. "No waiting on New Guinea."

Trader Joes has modeified their tiki figures on their shopping bags - perhaps for a limited 'summer' series.

The original fearful, spear holding tiki figure is on the left, the new lighter tone, popsicle holding tiki is on the right.

Vern

95648....we got em in Lincoln (Nor Cal). They are actually at the Trader Joe's in Roseville. I have a nice little collection of them....will do some kind of a craft some day. :)

FATIMA BLUSH: Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet.
JAMES BOND: Yes, but my martini is still dry.

[ Edited by: vampiressrn 2007-07-30 21:12 ]

Stopped by the Oceanside, California Trader Joe's yesterday. They've de-tikified it a lot, although it is not clear if this is temporary. The island and south-seas themed murals on the walls have been painted over with a non-discript yellow. A few Home Depot tikis that were hanging on the wall in the alcohol section are gone.

We've got a hybrid of Tiki and Baseball decor here at the Boston location. The Tiki with the popsicle reminds me of Bobby Hill wearing a Tiki mask!

On 2007-07-30 19:38, tikipedia wrote:
Stopped by the Oceanside, California Trader Joe's yesterday. They've de-tikified it a lot, although it is not clear if this is temporary. The island and south-seas themed murals on the walls have been painted over with a non-discript yellow. A few Home Depot tikis that were hanging on the wall in the alcohol section are gone.

They are expanding into a vacant space next door, so maybe it's just temporary.

Are the tiki bags gone?
The one in Culver City no longer has the tiki bags.
One in the San Gabriel Valley no longer carries the tiki bags.

We still have them in Milwaukee, but we got 'em late, so we'll probably have 'em later, too....

The new insulated bag, which has a surf theme, has a Tiki on the side.

While ordinarily I might be very excited about such, I am still hoping for a return of last summer's Tiki-themed brown bag.

It’s all so cartoonish. I can’t stand it any longer!

Unfortunately, no TJ staff I have spoken to seem to think the Tiki bag will make a return.

Just curious, can any one here tell me who the manufacture is on the TJ'S paper bags with the tiki's? Can anyone tell me if there is a name on the bottom of the bag? I have my reasons for asking, since I am the bag lady. LOL

I so miss the Tiki bags.
The Hawaiian version is so watered down, not to mention Tikiless, and the Tiki on the side of the blue version is so tiny as almost to be invisible.

[ Edited by: christiki295 2011-04-25 22:52 ]