For this project, I was prompted to find a package design that we felt was lacking and redesign it. I am very fond of the junk food I get at my local Japanese Grocer but the packages are often not entirely in English so I thought it would be fun to do a bilingual design. I have the English on one side and the Japanese on the other.
I wanted to inject some history into this project so I spent some time researching Japanese textiles to inspire the pattern I made. I found that the octagon is common in Japanese textiles in reference to the Buddhist 8-fold path so I made the box and octagon. I also learned of a common pattern called nami in Japanese textiles that I folded into an octagon for the pattern.
I also found that jade and gold represent luxury in ancient Japanese culture so I employed these colors to elevate the product.
This is the original package.
Earlier in the design process I had more elaborate ideas but they ended up being too fussy in use.
