Category: Packaging

Packaging

Mexican Pop Culture Branding

By Delphine Hirasuna |

For the packaging of Mexico’s premium craft beer, Cerveceria Sagrada, Mexican designer Jose Guizar built a brand identity around the nation’s legendary luchadors enmascarado (masked wrestlers). A beloved pop icon, the masked wrestlers were the first superheroes of Mexico. The colorful stylized masks they wore were designed to represent ancient heroes, deities, and animals — sacred identities that wrestlers assumed during their performance. The ferocious-looking masks reinforced the impression that the wrestlers were more than ordinary mortals. The most famous luchador, known simply as El Santo (the Saint), never removed his mask in public even in retirement. He was even buried wearing his silver mask.

In the 1950s, masked wrestlers became Mexico’s first pop culture icons, with El Santo turned into a comic book hero by artist Jose G. Cruz. The popular comics quickly led into a series of lucha libre action films in which the silver-masked El Santo defended the common people against supernatural creatures, evil scientists, vampires, secret agents and other villains. To this day, the masked wrestlers of Mexico embody the mystery, mystique and machismo of the culture.

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Packaging

Rubber-Stamped Japanese Food Packaging

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Traditional Japanese packaging for food products has historically been made of the natural materials-at-hand out of utilitarian necessity. Straw, bamboo sheath (the leaf that covers the sprouting bamboo shoot), and thinly shaved sheets of wood show an abiding connection to nature and a crafted human touch. Although this package design for Forest House Honey does not use wrapping materials plucked from nature, it has that sensibility in a 21st century kind of way. Yamagata-based Akaoni Design gave the packaging a simple humility with its unbleached brown paper and rubber-stamped floral block print patterns. Rather than a slick, “over-designed” manufactured look, the product has a farmer’s market “boutique” quality. It feels wholesome, organic, unadulterated by additives, and packaged by human hands and not mass produced by machine.

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Packaging

Morrisons Rebrands its Own Value Brand

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Morrisons, one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK, recently unveiled its rebranded entry-level “value” line, now bearing the name “M Savers.” The work was done by brand design agency Coley Porter Bell as part of a strategic assessment aimed at transforming Morrisons’ own label into a more coherent brand. With some 17,000 products and their variants in Morrisons’ own brand, positioning different tiers and categories of products was a daunting task.

Morrisons’ entry-level value line presented its own unique challenges. Stephen Bell, creative director at Coley Porter Bell, said that the term “value” had a negative meaning to some consumers. “Value ranges tend to be somewhat utilitarian, using template designs and basic corporate colors. Research shows that consumers are often ashamed to be seen with them. But with the economy stalled for the foreseeable future, value ranges will be competing on more than just price. We wondered why shouldn’t entry-level products have some charm and engagement?”

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Packaging

Chinese Rice Packaging Design

By Delphine Hirasuna |

How do you market a product that is viewed as a commodity in most parts of the world? Taipei-based Green in Hand sought to elevate the perceived value of rice grown locally in Eastern Taiwan by presenting it in stylish, contemporary packaging. Touting its brand as a “life style proposal of exquisite agriculture,” Green in Hand packaged its organic rice in an earthy plain brown paper bag with a natural twisted twine handle and hand-drawn calligraphy label to create a simple and sustainable look.

Colorful gift packaging reinforced Green in Hand’s message that it “provides service for those who care about the relationship between human and land.” The floral design looks pretty enough to be a ladies’ handbag. The packaging program won both the Red Dot and Hong Kong Design Council awards.

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Packaging

L’Occitane Brand’s African Connection

By Delphine Hirasuna |

When French skin care company, L’Occitane, came out with a new limited edition shea butter hand cream, it departed from its usual simple packaging design and chose a colorful traditional African textile pattern, called mudcloth, instead.

Aside from the fact that the design is eye-catching and that tribal prints are in fashion, mudcloth, also known as Bogolan, seemed like an unusual choice for a company associated with the fragrances of Provence.

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