UConn Magazine: Art of the Label

August 18, 2023 | Combined Reports - UConn Communications

Behind every box and can in your grocery store is a UConn nutrition and arts degree

(Illustration courtesy of Kyle Hilton)

Andy Warhol, the Pop artist who turned soup can labels into art, might have admired the work of Jerry Mande ’78 (CAHNR). As an FDA policy analyst in the early 1990s, Mande, who majored in nutritional sciences and minored in art, played a key role creating the uber-ubiquitous “Nutrition Facts” label.

His interest in health began as a junior in 1976. He was puzzled why the FDA, fearing a cancer-causing food dye, had banned red M&Ms. “I took a nutrition class to learn more about it, and it snowballed from there,” says the Westport native, who is now CEO of Nourish Science, a Bethesda, Maryland, nonprofit that works to solve the nutrition crisis.

Mande was a legislative aide to Sen. Al Gore in 1990 when Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act giving the FDA a comprehensive strategy on food labeling. Now all foods, with few exceptions, would carry a standard ingredients label to fight diet-related woes. While in Gore’s office, Mande had helped the then-congressman enact the National Organ Transplant Act, which created a national system to fairly allocate donated organs. But it was Mande’s interest in graphic design that caught the attention of former FDA commissioner David Kessler, who brought him on board. “Had it not been for Jerry’s efforts, we would not have the current food label,” says Kessler. “He was an intellectual giant, a visionary about how the label should look.”

In his book “A Question of Intent,” Kessler writes “Jerry took on the food label format as his personal mission, displaying a dogged focus that sometimes infuriated his colleagues. …He was convinced existing information was being ignored by consumers for two reasons: it was confusing and hard to read, [and] Jerry reasoned we should make sure it could be read.”

Working with the in-house art team, staffers, and social science experts who ran focus groups, Mande oversaw creation of versions of a possible label. But something was missing — pizzazz. Outside help came from designer Berkey Belser. He had created the yellow and black Energy Guide stickers for appliances in 1978 and agreed to work pro bono on the job.

Soon bold face type highlighted key terms. Tooling lines of different thicknesses separated items, making them easier to focus on. Words were justified and ran with the label’s margins to create more order. All punctuation was deleted, simplifying the look. Mande estimates the FDA considered three dozen preliminary versions.

Read on for more.