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Carton is the name of certain types of containers typically made from paperboard which is also sometimes known as "cardboard".

Contents 1 Artistic design 2 Packaging cartons 2.1 Types of cartons 2.2 Packaging history 2.3 Shape 2.4 Materials 2.5 Content 2.6 Labeling 2.7 Faces of missing children 3 Carton-pierre 4 Sources 5 See also

In art history, the carton (pronounced the French way) was a drawing on ordinary cardboard, used as life-size design for the manufacture in an atelier of a valuable tapissery, such as a gobelin. During the weaving it hung behind the tapissery in the making, a time-consuming process thus in a creative sense simplified to 'mechanical' painting-by-numbers.

As these were extremely valuable, often commanded by the very richest art-buyers, including princes who hung them in their palaces and even took them on their travels as prestigious displays of wealth, often with a visual message, especially the world-famous Flemish ateliers were deemed worthy to have cartons made by some of the greatest graphic artists of the time, including such celebrated painters as Rubens.

A carton is a type of packaging, generally for food. They come in many different shapes; milk cartons are upright boxes with spouts, egg cartons are long boxes with cups to hold the eggs upright.

Egg cartons or trays are designed to protect eggs while in transit. There are three types of raw materials which are used in the manufacture of egg cartons: recycled paper, styrofoam and, more recently, PET.

In North America, the three largest producers of egg cartons are CKF Inc., Hartmann North America and Pactiv Corporation.

An early American packaging industry pioneer was the Kieckhefer Container Company, which was run by John W. Kieckhefer. The company excelled in the use of fibre shipping containers, which especially included the paper milk carton. In 1957, through an exchange of stock, the Kieckhefer Conatiner Co. holdings were merged with the Weyerhauser Timber Company of Tacoma, Washington.

Although quite often shaped like a cuboid, it is not uncommon to find cartons lacking right angles and straight edges, as in squrounds used for ice cream. The number of corners on any given carton is a function of the product it contains. For example, a product with eight vertices would require a box also with eight corners. Exceptions to this rule are irregularly shaped products, like televisions, in which case polystyrene inserts are used to standardize the shape.

Despite the name, cartons can be made from many materials, and in fact are often a composite.

Often, cartons are made out of a single piece of paperboard, when the strength of corrugated fiberboard isn't needed. Depending on the need, this paperboard can be waxed or coated with polyethylene to form a moisture barrier. This may serve to contain a liquid product or keep a powder dry.

Plastics are another common packaging material since they can be molded in to a container of almost any shape.

A wide variety of products, mainly foods, are sold in cartons. The following are a few examples:

• eggs
• milk
• juice
• artificially flavored water
• condensed chicken soup
• condensed beef broth
• 20 cigarettes (1 pack)

The labels on cartons generally contain information. Much of this information is considered useful by many people, because it is very informative. For example, many labels have featured the following:

• label - indicative of the name, contents and producer of the carton.
• nutritional information
• contact instructions - how to contact the manufacturer in a complicated way involving hand-drawn facsimiles.
• ingredients - exposes the public to terms like propylene glycol for the first time.
• contests - again, hand drawn facsimiles are involved. Self-addressed stamped envelopes are also often required.

Beginning in the 1980s, milk cartons in the United States had faces of missing children printed on them with headlines such as "Have you seen me?" and descriptions of the children. The hope was that these photos would lead to the recovery of the children, and over 1,400 children were found as a direct result of this campaign.[1]

Under the French name of carton pierre ('stone carton') a substance which is essentially papier mâché is also largely employed as a substitute for plaster in the moulded ornaments of roofs and walls.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• Box
• Paperboard
• Packaging and labelling