Cowan London has created new Sake packaging design and identity for Akashi-Tai’s range of five artisan sakes. Let´s discover this cool project!
The agency immersed itself in Japanese culture to fully understand sake, the significance and importance of Japanese symbolism and iconography, and to gain an understanding of Japanese design codes and nuances, all of which proved to be very different to what we are used to in the West.
Elizabeth Finn, managing director, Cowan London, said: “Creating sake packaging was a true privilege. It’s very rare for a design agency outside Japan to be given that honour, but with our team’s extensive experience in alcohol branding, and our four offices in Asia, we were ideally placed to help Akashi-Tai realise its vision of bringing sake to the wider world.”
Samantha Dumont, Creative Director, Cowan London, added: “We needed to ensure that Akashi-Tai remained highly credible in Japan, whilst appealing, in a less expected way, to an increasing number of intrigued Western consumers. It seemed natural that the Tai icon and kanji calligraphy should take centre stage on the label, but once we understood the nuances of Japanese symbolism and the construct of Japanese design, it was interesting to discover that we had to un-learn some of the usual graphic design rules that we apply in the UK.”
Cowan recently won Best Packaging Design for Akashi-Tai at the International Beverage Awards held at Japan’s largest industry trade show Drink Japan.
