After posting my flour bag idea here, I just had to add my Short Breaks. I’m surprised it took me so long to connect the two. The photo is a Photoshop recreation of my original pack- which is buried in boxes and bags somewhere around here. Photoshop is so much easier than digging.
About 20 years ago, I had the idea that shorter cigarettes would let people smoke a whole cigarette quickly while standing in a cold doorway on break. I’d seen people pinching cigarettes out and saving the “butt” to finish later, and I’d seen quite a few long “butts” smashed on the ground by doors in alleyways around town. So I bought two packs of Camels and emptied both packs on my drawing board. Taking my craft knife, I trimmed about a third of each filter off of the cigarettes, and about a third of the tobacco off of the other end hoping to maintain the ratio of filter to tobacco in a shorter cigarette. It took 25 cigarettes to fill a pack stacking from end to end instead of side to side; two rows of eight and a row of nine down the center. I used Letraset letters to add “Short Breaks” to the pack, wrapped the pack securely and put it in a manila envelope.
I did a quick sketch, similar to the flour bag water color sketch I just posted, and wrote a letter describing how easy it would be to transition since the new pack could be packed and shipped the same way, marketed from shelves the same way, and sold from regular machines.
Like King Arthur, Mr. Reynolds didn’t like my idea. In fact, R.J. sent my pack back seemingly unopened, stating firmly that they had their own research, development, and marketing people and didn’t need my ideas.
Ah well.