Russell Hoban also refers to this in the childrens classic 'The Mouse and his Child' with the child-mouse musing on the last visible dog from a tin of recursively labelled dogfood.

-G

The Land O' Lakes box is the best one though: http://xrl.us/bjjft

Mark, I learned that Land O' Lakes trick when I was about 10 years old. Then I forgot about it. Every five years or so I remember again and make one to show somebody. It's always a hoot.

Actually, the color cracker jack kid is holding a cracker jack prize packet, not a package of cracker jack. The blue & white cracker jack kid is then holding a Dylan style "Subterranean Homesick Blues" cue card with cracker jack written on it. So you know... those pop-math-arcana people should just stick with that david hasselhoff image that keeps zooming in on him.

Slush Puppie!

http://www.warehousefoodswv.com/images/Products/Slush_Puppie.jpg

Nitrolien Paint

hmmmm that didn't work

http://internationalposter.com/poster-details.aspx?id=FRL01040

This gentleman has a website with muletiple "Drose" videos http://www.josleys.com/show_gallery.php?galid=291

I've noticed quite a bit of this on Flickr lately

http://flickr.com/search/?q=droste+

I've noticed quite a bit of this on Flickr lately

http://flickr.com/search/?q=droste+

This is neat. It can lead to some clever & amusing packaging designs or those that are just utterly abysmal.

I remember as a kid tripping out over a cover of TV Guide. The cover featured The Simpsons sitting on their couch, watching TV. And on the TV of course, was an image of the Simpsons sitting on their couch watching TV...

I'm just glad to see that Cracker Jack has finally gotten rid of the evil transfat.

Evil Jim,

Interesting, example. This seems like one of those times when the company or partnering company goes "our brand message isn't big enough" and a designer looking for an easy out at 5:45pm frames it within a frame, and strangely enough, it fulfills its purpose and makes it into production.

I've noticed something similar to the Droste effect occuring when i surf different, but similar web logs. Ideas tend to repeat and evolve, but generally speaking, come from the same original source, outwards...does that make sense?

I came here to post that Dawn Of Sorrow boxart and I'm delighted that I've been beaten to it.

I've actually passed on that game because of that box.

La vache qui rit, a famous french cheese for kids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vache_qui_rit.gif

Them fancy-pants literary critics call this mise en abyme. I don't know from cocoa packaging.

http://g.photos.cx/lwf00173vo-4d.jpg
http://g.photos.cx/13808-9a.jpg
are great examples too :D

When Iwas a kid, like 6, I use to wonder if they printed "all the way" or just as much as I could see,on the "vache qui rit" label.

;)

A fun way of experiencing the Droste Effect or yourself...

Get a video camera that can play live on a TV or monitor.

Point the camera at the monitor.

Now experiment with moving the camera from side to side, twisting slightly, back and forth, etc...

Notice that you will get infinite generations of the screen image layered within each other.

Then you can put objects or your self between the monitor and camera!!!

Notice that when you move an object, you will see the movement in the layers/generations that move in sequence. It's almost spooky.

It's REALLY AMAZING and I can't even think about setting it up right now because I'll just lose a whole day playing...

But you have fun with. : )

I bought this scary looking hot sauce a while ago. It definitely qualifies.

http://www.brobrubru.com/brobrubru/brobrubru.html

The sauce is ultra hot and pretty flavorless though

OMG - the brubru hot sauce is my favorite by far. so creepy!

I cannot find an image of it on the interwebs, but the French aperitif Dubonnet's label features a cat curled around a bottle of Dubonnet, whose label etcetera.

@ #23 posted by Bob Rossney , April 19, 2008 12:18 PM

http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Dubonnet-Vin-Tonique-Au-Quinouina-Print-C10070555.jpeg

:o)

Droste effect mutates out of graphics world; suspect Marvin, please advise.

A few years back a couple of Dutch mathematicians teamed up with a couple of artists and filled in the hole in M.C. Esher's "Print Gallery".

http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/

I love the videos on the webpage where they zoom in on the resulting image indefinitely.

If you're a math nerd, the paper's really interesting, too. The fact that there was a natural way to straighten out the image and then also to turn it "inside out" (so that the framed print spills out the other way) is pretty nifty, if you ask me. Perhaps the coolest thing about the paper is where Escher's hand-drawn grids, which he created through an iterative trial-and-error process (guided by a vague notion in his head), are put side-by-side with the grid of the conformal transformation which underlies the image. You have to look pretty close before you can see any differences!

Here was a person who, like Ramanujan, had incredible intuition about mathematical concepts, despite little or no formal training. Unlike Ramanujan, however, he channeled that intuition into creative output that even the most math-phobic person can look at and say "Wow, that's really neat." Lucky for us all!

(Thanks also to Professors Lenstra and de Smit for giving math nerds something to show their relatives when they ask what good a third year course on group theory will ever do you.)

So, if you yourself hold the package can you prove you're not on some fourth-dimensional box o' widgets in that big supermarket in the cosmos?

It's not the Droste Effect exactly, but I feel I must mention the Coke can with the picture of the Coke bottle on it:

http://www.macalester.edu/library/about/preservation/6050C7CokeCan.jpg