I decided to try my hand at a project I gave my packaging class at Otis College of Art and Design. Namely, to create a label and box for a limited run of sake to honor famed film-maker Akira Kurosawa and acknowledge over 100 years of Japanese cinema. My sake would be bottled in authentic Bizen-ware pottery. It would be called: Kurosawa 100. The graphics and materials would be in the traditional Japanese style.
I did a sumi rendering of "Kurosawa" to run vertically up the bottle label and outside the box. One I did in Latin script and the other in Japanese Hiragana.
Black Japanese mulberry paper clothed the outside of the box, which was constructed of chipboard. The mulberry paper was also dampened and wrapped arround the Bizen ware vessel. Cloth "frogs" became hinges.
The marketing narrative is printed on the inside of the box's L-shaped door. A scene from The Seven Samurai has been manipulated to be barely visible.
Extra insets and a platform were created for the inside. The mulberry paper was a fragile, but a good choice. After it was stretched and glued to the chip board it felt like cloth.
A final element to mock up was the back label. The government warning is essential for all products containing alcohol.
This concludes my design and mock up for our class project. My students are currently working on their versions of this assignment and most have decided to apply their talents to more conventional wine product packaging. They've picked brands of wine and established their own target markets and product narratives. I hope to post some of their design solutions in the near future. Materials for mock ups are unrestricted, so students can use chipboard, wood, metal or any other material that is appropriate for their intended market.
